Beacon of Hope on the Hellmouth
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: Heroes are not made, they decide to stand up and for others. What will Buffy do when a superheroine ends up in Sunnydale on her first day of school?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and City of Heroes do not belong to me. Futurias, Khel'Futurias and Nict'Futurias do, however. Not that I'm planning of using any of this professionally.

-

"They've set up a ward outside the lab!" warned Hot Stuff even as he sent a wave of fire, incinerating two Banished Pantheon undead. His flaming red hair and bright costume was covered in arcane symbols, the source of his immolating blasts.

"Tell us something useful!" Rosetta Stone yelled back. The petite girl's red and blue outfit was starting to look a bit tattered, but she was keeping most of the zombie's attention on herself and away from the weaker members of the ad-hoc super-team.

Sirenius screamed, shattering another zombie. "What are they doing with that Portal?" She was what a lot of heroes called a 'mundane' hero, as she only wore normal outfits... even if massive fights like this. Unlike all the colorful capes around her

Khel'Futurias finished smashing another zombie almost flat and looked over her shoulder, her aura flaring higher. "They are attempting to program that portal to a proscribed realm!"

Rosetta happened to notice a group of distinctive heroes, led by Statesman himself. "It's the Freedom Phalanx! They'll save the day!"

Khel'Futurias frowned. "Yes, they will!" _Corona Bright Flash,_ _I will need all of our power, now!_ The Kheldian Peacebringer suddenly launched herself towards into the air and towards the rotating, mechanical rings that focused massive amounts of energy to breach dimensional barriers. "Freedom Phalanx... FORWARD!" she shouted. She was a reservist, damn it! She was a hero just as much as the big guns!

_DAWNSTRIKE!_ She mentally screamed, unleashing her tap into the nearest star with cataclysmic affect, overloading the portal and causing it to collapse in upon itself.

The zombies and shamans of the Banished Pantheon disappeared in the blinding light. When everyone could see again, all that was left of the portal was a blasted crater fifty feet wide to the shock of all the heroes present.

-

Khel'Futurias felt overwhelming pressure. In just seconds, she was going to be utterly crushed despite being able to shrug off heavy munitions! Desperately, she initiated a phase shift in her very physical structure, becoming pure bundles of quantum energy that was out of shift with all matter and energy. She wouldn't be able to maintain this form long, but she was safe for a moment. Scanning around, her ghostly eyes took in a tear in space, closed and pulsing with energy.

She flew towards it, gather her energy. With a burst of light rocketed out of the ground, right through a high school. Finally drained of energy, she arced across the sky as a flickering light that fell to the earth.

Creatures of the darkness saw that and frowned in worry. Was that a human firework... or something portentous?

-

"And honey! Try not to get kicked out?" Joyce called out to Buffy as her daughter walked towards her first day of her new school.

"I promise!" she replied back. She was still feeling slightly out of it from the dream of vampires and sparkling light.

"'Scuse me, comin' through, pardon me, 'scuse me, whoa! 'Scuse me, not sure how to stop! Please move, whoa, 'scuse me..." Xander Harris suddenly spotted the pretty and petite blonde and instantly forgot important of things like momentum and direction! "Whoa!" he cried out a foot stepped on his skateboard and deftly caught him. "Thanks!" he said, before looking up at the oddly dressed girl in front of him.

For one, she was wearing a leather jacket and leather pants. In Sunnydale, which was a bright and quite balmy place. And she was pale and very tall. Hair, eyes and skin glinted palely in the bright sun. The whole nine yards. She grinned softly. "You need to watch were you are going," she said. "You could have hurt yourself."

"Uh, thanks." Xander blinked and checked her shoes. Heavy, fairly flat boots. She was a giant, over six feet tall. "Ah, you are new? I'm Xander!"

"Alythea!" she replied absently as she focused on a piece of paper in her hands.

"Xander! Don't stare!" a female, red-haired and slightly scowling at him, said urgently.

"Oh, sorry!" Suddenly, the voice finally clicked to him. "Willow! Very much so the girl I wanted to see! I need your help!"

Willow arched an eyebrow at that. This should be interesting. "Oh?"

"I kinda had some problems with the math," he said cheekily.

"Uh, which part?" she asked, confused.

"The math! Please! Be my study buddy!" he whined cutely.

"Excuse me?" Alythea interjected.

"Oh, sorry!" Willow said. "Can I help you?"

"I'm trying to find Mr. Smith's room," she said, holding up a nearly illegible note.

-

On the chalkboard behind the teacher, large and bold words of The Black Death could be seen. " It's estimated that about twenty-five million people died in that one four-year span. But the fun part of the Black Plague is that it originated in Europe how?"

Buffy was trying to take notes, but she didn't have a class book yet.

" As an early form of germ warfare. If you'll look at the map on page sixty-three you can trace the spread of the disease into Rome, and then north..."

The retired Slayer frowned as an unusual movement caught her attention from the really tall, really _pale_ girl sitting next to the window. She seemed to be holding her right ear. It finally dawned on Buffy where she had seen that gesture. It was what bodyguards did when they heard something on their little ear-radios in the movies. Distractedly, Buffy noted that the girl didn't even have a book or pen on her desk.

Alythea stood up. "Excuse me, teacher! I have to leave for a bit." Without waiting for a response, she headed thru the door.

"You haven't been excused!" the teacher called out, his class suddenly disrupted, but the very tall girl was already out the door. Not having anything with that, Mr. Smith headed to the door with a large scowl. He was just opening it when an incredibly loud crackling thunder boomed and light flashed in his eyes.

Girls (and a few boys) screamed in surprise, but when the teacher opened his eyes... there was nothing there.

-

"Control tower, flight 7014 is still losing power. I don't know if we are going to make it to LAX! I'm starting to get some warning lights on engine number one now!" The captain kept scanning his instruments, but nothing seemed to be working.

"Trying to restart number two!" his copilot said. Several flips and no response. "George, can you go take a look at number two and number one and see what is going on?"

The navigator nodded, starting to unbelt himself. "Sure."

Suddenly, a new female voice broke in over the radio. "Your number two engine is badly damaged. Do not attempt to start it! Repeat, do not attempt to start it!"

LAX's controller broke on the radio, "Unknown flight! You are accessing a controlled space! Clear out or you might make the problem worse."

"I am approaching from your right side! You should be able to see me... now!" Khel'Futurias said as she flew fifty feet from the right side. The copilot just stared at the young woman wearing a skin-tight white and yellow outfit with a cape, just like a comic book heroine. Some sort of incandescent energy surrounded. She gave a wave and dropped further back, circling around the plane. "Flight 7014, I am seeing small humanoids that are attacking your functional engine. Moving to clear them now!"

The navigator opened the cockpit door and headed back to the passengers that were all pointing at the left engine. The sight that greeted him was dumbfounding, as the girl was blasting things from the engine with white beams of energy from her eyes. Remembering his training, he looked over at the other engine. Blanching, he headed back to the cockpit.

"Engine number one is failing!" the captain said.

"We have a fire in engine number two!" the navigator said urgently.

"I've already cut the engine lines!" the copilot called out. "The cutoff must be stuck!"

Khel'Futurias blasted the last little reptilian from the working engine and then skimmed under the wing. She looked it over carefully for just a second and then unleashed a much larger blast and sheared the engine entirely off. The loss of the engine sent shudders through the wing even as Khel'Futurias reached into the blasted mounting and squeezed the fuel line. "I had to remove the engine. I will be right back!"

With a burst of light, she caught up to the falling engine. Energy charged into her fists as she unleashed her mightiest double-handed blow, nearly vaporizing the engine. She turned and then caught up to the plane.

It was obviously starting to lose altitude as the other engine had finally failed. With a grimace, she started pushing with more and more of her power against the back most point of the plane. "I am now applying forward thrust! You will have to tell me how much and when to cut off!" It looked like this was going to be a busy morning, Khel'Futurias thought to herself.

-

Buffy and Cordelia (and indeed, the rest of the class) were staring at the television in shock. The jet liner was sitting on the tarmac, rescue crews headed to help the people inside. But the glowing figure had already left... _flying off_ to who knows where.

Low resolution pictures were almost useless, as energy seemed to leak off of the spandex-clad white and yellow figure. She even had a cape. Most of her outfit seemed to be made of sharp, acute angles of triangles, except for the yellow diamond on her chest.

Alythea walked into the classroom quietly, arching an eyebrow at the television. Everyone was raptly wrapped up on it and ignored her entirely.

"I would say that this is one of those era defining moments of your generation," the teacher suddenly said. "Like JFK's assassination, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall, you are _seeing_ a truly history moment. A real life super-heroic figure, just like in the comic books!"

Most of the rest of the class was spent going over the event, which was startlingly to Alythea Cole. There were no super powered heroes in this world?

Just as class was closing, the teacher gave them their new assignment, out of the class book.

"Don't forget to get your book from the library, Buffy!" Cordelia said as she walked off with a cheery wave.

"Right!" she called back.

"Do you mind if I follow you? I guess I need a book, too," Alythea said.

Buffy gave the pale girl a hard look. Something was very... _off_ about her. She was slightly wiggy about her, but it seemed to be okay. It wasn't like the girl was a vampire, sitting under the sunlight like that... but Buffy would have sworn she wasn't human. "Sure."

Alythea smiled. "Thanks!"

"We really need to work on your fashion sense. Leather pants with buckles and a big, bulky leather jacket? That is so Mad Max!" Buffy said in complaint.

The taller girl blinked, then looked around the passing students. Most of the girls were wearing skirts or jeans and regular blouses or t-shirts. "I don't have anything similar to that. I'm not even sure how to go about getting... _regular_ clothes."

"You, girl, need to go shopping!" the blonde said with vigor.

"Shopping?" Alythea asked in trepidation.

"I'm Buffy! Not Elizabeth, just Buffy!"

"Alythea," the taller girl replied.

"They must have given you all my 'grow tall pills'," Buffy groused. She was getting crick in her neck from looking up.

"I don't think they used pills to make me grow tall," the other girl said.

"Just a joke, Ali! We need to get you out from under that rock you've lived under!"

"Oh!"

Buffy trotted right to the library with 'Ali' in tow. "Hello! Anyone here?" she called out by the checkout counter. She glanced at the newspaper there, frowning at what she saw.

Alythea smiled as she entered. This looked like the arcane repositories for heroes of a magical bent back in Paragon City. She picked up a book on a tall shelf labeled _Blood rituals: Druidic_. "Hmm. Interesting," she muttered to herself.

The librarian appeared behind Buffy, tapping her on the shoulder. "Can I help you?"

Buffy spun around, obviously quite startled. "I was looking for some, well, class books. I'm new."

"Miss Summers?" he said, heading behind the counter.

"Must not be too many new kids?" she said jokingly.

He nodded in answer, "I'm Mr. Giles. The librarian. I was told you were coming." He started rummaging around behind the counter.

"Great! So, um, I'm gonna need 'Perspectives on 20th Century...'" she started to say, ticking off the books on her fingers.

"I know what you're after!" Giles interrupted with a grin. He pulled out a very large and old book, titled 'Vampyr'.

"That's not what I'm looking for," Buffy said uneasily.

"Vampire?" Alythea said as she stepped out of the shadows and picked up the book. Those creatures from last night had claimed they were vampires, but they didn't resemble the ones created by binding Nictus fragments to them like the ones back in Paragon City.

Giles looked intently at Buffy. "Are you sure?" His eyes moved quickly over to Alythea and he carefully removed a crucifix from his tweed jacket's pocket.

Alythea was quickly starting to flip pages. Hmm...

Buffy started to move back, looking concerned at Giles and Alythea. "I'm _way_ sure."

"Buffy? Hey, wait up!" the tall girl said and she set the book down and hurried after the blonde.

Giles just stared after them. "Very unusual."

-

"- And to return this," Xander said out on the quad, holding the stake that Buffy had dropped between classes. "The only thing I can think is that you're building a really little fence!"

"Hah, no, um, a-a-actually it was for self-defense. Everyone has them in L.A. Pepper spray is just so passé," Buffy said in a not too convincing tone.

"Oh, there you are Buffy!" Alythea said as she walked over. There were two boys and a new girl by the girl. "Hello! I'm Alythea."

Willow, Xander and Jesse all introduced themselves.

"Oh, the other transfer student!" Willow exclaimed. "Don't you have any books yet?"

Alythea still only had some papers and a pen, shoved into the pocket of her black leather jacket. "No, not yet."

Cordelia suddenly walked up and interrupted, "Are these guys bothering you?" she asked in a tone that was barely not insulting.

"She's _not_ hanging out with us!" Willow said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, Cordelia!" Jesse said, obviously smitten with the pretty girl.

"Oh, please!" Cordelia said with an obvious roll of her eyes. She turned to Buffy. " I don't mean to interrupt your downward mobility, but I just wanted to tell you that you won't be meeting Coach Foster, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was canceled due to the _extreme_ dead guy in the locker."

Alythea and Buffy both tensed. "What?" the exclaimed.

"What are you talking about?" Willow asked, suddenly worried.

"Some guy was stuffed in Aura's locker!" the cheerleader exclaimed.

"Dead," Buffy said, making it not quite a question.

"Totally! Way dead!" Cordelia responded.

"How did he die?" Alythea asked, looking back towards the school. So something _was_ off about Sunnydale.

"I didn't ask! Morbid much?" Cordelia said, staring up at the very tall girl.

"Um, I gotta book. I'll, I'll see you guys later," Buffy said hurriedly. She then heads off.

"The locker room, right?" Alythea asked. At Cordelia's nod, she also walked off quickly.

-

Buffy snapped the lock to the gymnasium and carefully sidled inside. In just a moment, she is in the locker room, pulling the cloth back to see the dead boy. "Oh, great."

"It looks like he was bit," Alythea said as she walked back around the corner.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy asked, pulling out her stake.

"Checking out the dead body. Just like you," the pale girl said, nodding towards the body.

"Why do you care?" the ex-Slayer asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm worried that whatever killed him is still out there, hunting. Though I don't understand why he doesn't have any blood," Alythea said.

"He must have been drained. The vampire drank his blood," Buffy said morbidly.

"Vampires drink blood?" the taller girl asked. "Isn't that sort of conspicuous?"

"Whatever. I need to chat with Mr. Book Guy. I'll see you later," Buffy said and walked off.

Alythea cocked her head slightly sideways. She wasn't quite sure what Buffy meant there. But it was fairly obvious that she knew more about the situation than she was willing to explain. With a thought, Alythea phased her form out of synch with reality and floated right through the roof.

-

Later that night, Buffy has her foot on a strange man's neck as he lay on his back in an alleyway. He'd been following her, but she had tricked him and then sent him sprawling.

"Is there a problem?" the man on the ground asked glibly.

Suddenly, the alley filled with white-blue light. "Yes, is there a problem?" Khel'Futurias was floating in the air, here white and yellow cape fluttered in the wind.

"Stalker stalking got ambushed by stalkeree," Buffy explained with a casual shrug.

"Excuse me?" the floating figure said. "You speak very strangely, Buffy."

Buffy raised an eyebrow at that. "Excuse me? Do I know you?"

The energy crackle dies down a bit. Khel'Futurias looks at Buffy worriedly. "You are Buffy Summers, right?" she queried.

"Ali?" the blonde said with eyes wide in shock.

"Right!" Khel'Futurias suddenly looked around. "Oh, that guy snuck off. Why were you threatening him, anyways?"

"Because he was stalking me," Buffy complained. "I thought he might have been... something that meant to attack me."

"Oh, you mean like the vampires? I've had to deal with a few already, but they are getting better at spotting me flying around," the hero said with a shrug.

"You've been dealing with the vampires?" Buffy asked. "I should introduce you to watcher-in-tweed librarian!"

"I don't understand what you mean there. You are very confusing," the tall girl said.

"Where you born on an alien planet?" Buffy complained.

"I wasn't created on any planet!"

The ex-Slayer blinked and swallowed. "Do I want to know? No, this totally normal person does not want to know about weird things. She's just going to take herself and go dancing!"

Khel'Futurias scratched her head. Had she insulted her new friend. "Go dancing?"

"Something you are so not dressed to go. While spandex isn't bad, a full white and yellow bodysuit is not dance wear!" Buffy explained, shaking her head at the comic book style outfit, cape and all.

"Oh. I've got that outfit I was wearing earlier. Serge said it was to 'show people I'm mean and sexy'. I don't think it makes me mean though," the taller girl said. With a mental command, the outfit sparkled and suddenly she was standing in her biker leathers again. "Easy to change. That's the only, er, normal clothing I have though."

"Now how do I get clothing like that?" Buffy asked with a grin.

"No idea, sorry." Alythea turned and started floating off the ground.

"Well, I'm headed over to the Bronze. I guess it's this club that the younger crowd hangs out! I'll see you there!" Buffy said as she turned. She accidentally sent a small box skidding.

"The Bronze? Okay!" and with that, Khel'Futurias zoomed off into the air.

-

A frustrating ten minutes later after not finding any muggers or vampires, Khel'Futurias was flying overhead and saw the sign for The Bronze. With a shrug, she phased right through the wall by the bathrooms. She landed easily and with a sparkle, changed her outfit into the faux leathers again. She headed down the hall towards the music.

There were so many people that she was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic almost immediately, causing her to frown. She was starting to wander aimlessly through the crowd when a young male roughly grabbed her elbow. "What are you doing here?" he snarled.

"Um, meeting someone?" she replied inanely, eyes wide in surprise.

"We are here at the behest of the Master. Don't get in our way... or else!" he warned, then turned back to the crowd and walked off.

Alythea frowned. She was definitely missing something. Who was this master?

"Oh! Hello!" Willow called out near the bar. "You're Alythea, right?"

She nodded in response. "Willow, right?" Alythea looked over the noisy room of dancing kids. "Is this some sort of exercise?"

"Um, no. Not really. It's just fun."

"Oh. I've been told I have problems with fun," she replied with no attempt at humor.

Willow laughed. Her laugh turned strained as she realized that other girl might not have been joking. "Well, I'm going to take some advice from Buffy!" She squared her shoulders and walked out onto the dance floor.

Buffy must be here, Alythea thought. She started looking around more thoroughly. She squinted in the poor light. Should she light up the area? No, it appears to be dark on purpose, so that would be rude. Wait, maybe back towards where she had entered. "Buffy?" Alythea said as he got closer, following her towards the back door. She was startled as Buffy grabbed her by the throat and slammed her up against the wall. Energy crackled over her skin defensively.

"Oh, sorry, Ali!" Buffy exclaimed.

Cordelia just happened to be walking out of the bathroom to see Buffy, a very normal-seeming yet hip girl, holding a glowing-eyed figure up against a wall. She blinked. Rubbed her eyes and blinked again. "I did not just see the newest and trendiest person to hit town do what I just saw, did I?" she asked querulously.

"Um, nope," Buffy stammered, hastily letting Alythea go. The white-haired girl looked at Buffy in confusion, but then nodded even as her eyes faded. The ex-Slayer suddenly piped up, "Hey, have you seen Willow? Did she come by here?"

"Planning on clubbing her so she learns some fashion sense?" Cordelia asked, arching an eyebrow at the sharply broken off wooden chair-leg in Buffy's hand.

Buffy at least had the presence of mind to blush at that. "Um, nope." She headed back into the club and away from the women's bathroom, Alythea trailing behind.

Cordelia immediately started to pull out her cell phone, ignoring her followers.

Giles found Buffy in the middle of the throng of dancers. "That was quick. Well done!" He spared a quick glance at the tall young woman trailing behind Buffy with a bemused expression. Whatever she was, she wasn't a vampire from her total lack of reaction back in the library to his cross. "I I-I need to go to the library. This Harvest thing..."

"I didn't find them!" Buffy huffed. "Just the Jolly White Giantess."

Giles grabbed her arm. "The vampire is not dead?"

"Why are you looking for this vampire?" Alythea asked curiously. Was being a vampire illegal. That would be very racist if that were the case.

Buffy whirled on the taller girl. "Look, that vampire just took off with Willow, thinking she is snackable. We have to save her before anything bad happens!"

"What should we do?" Giles asked.

"I'll take care of it!" Buffy snapped out, even as she started to walk out.

Alythea followed. "Want someone to watch your back? I'll follow your lead."

Buffy spun, looking up into very pale blue eyes. "Fine." A super hero wouldn't hurt. And she was just being backup. That made sense. She was so caught up she didn't even notice Darla speaking to Jesse as she stomped on by on their way out.

Soon they were outside, looking quickly for the mousy red-head. Buffy then spotted Xander just as he spotted her.

"Hey, you're leaving already?" he asked, worried that the girl he was already smitten with was taking off for the night.

Buffy and Alythea were still scanning around. "Oh, Xander! Have you seen Willow?"

"Not tonight, no." He looked confused.

"She left with a guy."

Xander looked totally flabbergasted. "We're talking about Willow, right?" He started grinning over his friend's sudden success. "Scorin' at the Bronze, work

it girl..."

"She is in deadly danger. We need to find her now before she is killed by the vampire that is kidnapping her!" Alythea interrupted bluntly.

Buffy and Xander just looked at her in total shock. Buffy because you just didn't _do_ it like that, Xander because it was just so out of left field, even after all the things he'd been starting to piece together about the strange girl from L.A.

"Where would she go?"

-

Buffy opened the door to the crypt, glass diffracting the dim light into it. She just walked brazenly into it like she was the owner. "Well, this is nice. I-it's a little bare, but a dash of paint, a

few throw pillows... call it home!" she finished with a sniff, running her finger along the sarcophagus's lid.

Alythea gave Xander a confused look, as if to ask, 'Is this how it is supposed to happen?'

Darla snarled, her vampiric countenance twisted in anger. "Who the hell are you?"

The Slayer looked relieved. "You mean there's actually someone in this town who doesn't know already? Whew, that's a relief, I'm telling you! Having a secret identity in this town is a job of work."

"Wouldn't that work better if you wore a mask?" Alythea asked curiously, but she was smiling at the banter. You could always tell that the situation was under control when the heroes joked around. Well, most of the time. There were a few heroes that joked even when they were being eviscerated and about to die.

Xander just gave the tall albino a very weirded out look. "Shouldn't we be bailing?"

"Nope. Not yet," the male vampire said with a twisted grin.

"Now, we can do this the hard way, or... well, actually there's just the hard way," Buffy was nattering on, but her eyes were quite focused.

"That's fine with me!" Darla snarled out.

Darla and Thomas were moving to surround Buffy, when Alythea shouted out, "Behind you!" and then blasted out startlingly bright-white eyebeams at the vampire behind Buffy, sending him flying and slamming him into a wall that cracked from the force.

"It burns like sunlight!" he whimpered.

"Thanks, Ali! Appreciate it!" Buffy called out while grinning, even as she pulled out a stake a stabbed it into Darla while the vampiress was distracted. Darla had just a moment to shriek before she exploded into dust.

The vampire, Thomas, just stared in shock. Darla had been stronger than him! His eyes started to dart around frantically.

"A stick explodes vampires into dust? I had to work a lot harder to defeat those two from last night when they attacked me!" Alythea whined. Was it a special stick? No, Buffy had just broken it off a chair at the club.

"I need another stake!" Buffy realized aloud. The last stake had dusted with the vampire.

Thomas made a dash for the door, startling Willow to scream and knocking over Xander in his haste. White energy congealed around Alythea's fist, even as she slammed it into his stomach and sent him flying back.

"Ahhh! It burns! It burns!" he shrieked as he frantically made sure he wasn't on fire.

"All yours, Ali!" Buffy catcalled.

"Okay then," the heroine replied. Both hands were glowing, even as she unleashed a much larger blast, hoping to incapacitate the vampire. Instead, he shrieked for just a moment before catching on fire, then exploded into dust.

"Way to go girl!" the Slayer cried out in glee. "I so need to get some of that mojo!"

"You aren't upset that I killed him?" Alythea asked in confusion.

"He was a people eating corpse. It was definitely of the good that he's no longer around in the land of the living or unliving!" she replied.

"Jesse!" Willow said worriedly, shaking the nearly comatose boy. Xander moved over. "That girl said she'd snacked on him."

Suddenly all business, Buffy moved over and checked on him. "He should be fine, if we can get him to a hospital."

"Stand aside, please," Alythea asked pleasantly. When they did, she raised her hand again, sending a beam of white light that struck Buffy who stepped into the way.

"Wait! You can't kill him! And I should so be hurting instead of feeling better and I think I had no idea what you were doing," Buffy babbled on, lost in her train of thoughts.

"I was actually healing him by re-adjusting his quantum energy biorhythms. I should have warned you first, I guess," the foreign heroine explained with a small grin. When Buffy stepped out of the way, she sent out the light, healing him again. "Is that better?" she asked Jesse.

"Uh, yeah. I just feel a little hungry," Jesse replied while rubbing his neck.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I so want out of here and leave this creepy place out of my mind!" Willow said in a whiny voice.

"I agree with the really smart red-head. On with the vamoosing!" Xander agreed with a only slightly less shocked voice.

They all trooped up the cramped stairs and into the night. As they were leaving, Luke watched them from the shadows. The Master would want to know of this immediately. This pale girl with the white light was totally out of his experience.

The quintet of kids were suddenly surrounded by four more vampires, already with their game face on. Willow and Xander both shrieked, while Buffy was starting to get _really_ worried. Six vampires? Sunnydale was looking like it was incredibly infested with the undead.

Alythea reacted by suddenly charging her body fully, eyes exploding with white light. Energy crackled under her right foot, even as she raised it up. With a blinding flash of light, she stomped the ground hard enough to trigger an explosion of white energy, sending the two vampire in front of her flying to crash into headstones over thirty feet way. She whirled and lifted off into the air with a crackle. "I won't let you hurt these kids!" she thundered.

The two remaining vampires spared a quick glance at each other, then did the smartest thing they could, by taking off and running. Buffy was sprinting after the one on the left, even as she called out, "Don't let them get away!" The Slayer then threw herself into a full body tackle, sending her and the vampire sprawling over the graves.

The second one just looked over his shoulder to see the crazy glowing girl charging at him, her whole body glowing like she was on fire with white energy. He zigged at the last second, trying to stay out of her reach. Two searing fists smashed into his back. With a shriek, the vampire exploded into dust.

Buffy rolled to her feet and up to a tree. With her Slayer strength, she snapped a branch off and then jammed it into the remaining vampires' chest, with the typical reaction. She slapped her legs to knock some of the dust off of her.

"She's the super hero that saved that plane at LAX," Jesse exclaimed.

"Correct!" Alythea said as she landed next to them.

Buffy walked over, then narrowed her eyes in thought. "So why are you going to Sunnydale High School?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh! She's undercover and investing Mr. Flutie for being part of some evil conspiracy!" Willow exclaimed.

"Um, actually, I was just told by a police officer yesterday morning that all children under the age of seventeen are supposed to go to school. That isn't true? He escorted me over and told me to go or he'd call my parents," she finally replied, looking very confused.

Xander started laughing. "Oh, too funny! Old Man Loyd snagged himself a super-hero that he thought was truant!"

Jesse just smirked. "So you just followed his orders? Girl, we have got to teach you about real life."

Buffy was thinking the same thing. "So what brought you to Sunnydale?"

"Oh, that? An interdimensional portal that I had to collapse to save Paragon City last night. It's put me right under the High School, actually."

"I always knew school was evil! Ha, take that Willow!" Jesse catcalled.

"School isn't evil!" Willow argued.

"Yes it is!" Xander retorted. "I mean, even you think Mr. Flutie is evil!"

"You don't have any place to go, do you?" Buffy finally asked, cutting off the three friends bickering about school and its evils.

"No, not really. But I never really have had any place of my own. The closest I've ever had was Paragon City, helping protect it from fanatic militias, killer robots, homicidal cults and insane gods." She shrugged. "I really don't need much anyways."

"Um," Buffy said. She couldn't just offer her the couch. Her mother would freak and think that Ali was being a bad influence. Especially dressed in those leather pants and a mesh-shirt with a biker-jacket on top.

"Let's get someplace safer for right now," Alythea suggested.

-

After leaving them at the library so that Buffy could talk to Giles, Khel'Futurias floated up into the sky wearing her skin-tight yellow and white super hero uniform, cape flapping in the wind. Before she'd found Buffy this evening, she'd run into a few people that had complained about where was she when the big problems of the world were happening. That was when she had found out about some truly horrifying things that had happened because there were no heroes that could stop them. She had put off dealing with them for long enough.

She inputed the coordinates for the first location. Maybe she could help clean up those messes, even if she couldn't save the lives and damage caused by them. Luckily the GPS system matched the one in Paragon City.

-

Deep in the bowels of the earth, blood bubbled as an ancient vampire rose straight out of its depths, eerily unblemished by the crimson liquid that sustained him and would eventually free him. Torchlight flickered in the rippling liquid.

"Master! Something has interfered with our hunt. Something I don't know at all!" Luke said, bowing deeply. His vampiric nature was visible, due to his great fear.

"What do you mean, Luke?" the Master asked, his voice cold and harsh.

"It was a girl, more pale than even a vampire. But she burned with white light and destroyed your servants. She even killed Darla." Luke knew that Darla was sometimes a favored servant of the Master. "And there is another girl. She appears normal, but she is strong and fast. She _knew_ how to destroy us by staking with wood."

"If an angel treads the lands, then the treaties with the Powers may be broken." The Master suddenly grinned. "The days of the animal may be over far sooner than I thought if certain of the Old Ones take notice of this."

"And that can't be allowed," a new voice called out.

"A balance demon," the Master noted aloud, quite surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm just letting you know that the Powers That Be have not broken the balance. The Slayer is their instrument, the interloper will be dealt with," the man said.

"Who are you?" Luke demanded.

"No one important. You can call me Whistler. The being will be removed tonight and returned to their realm." The Balance Demon looked upset and worried.

"And why tell me this?" the Master asked.

"Just to set the record straight. This person is a rogue and will be dealt with. The Powers That Be will stand ready to face any incursion against anyone from beyond," he said, staring at the Master intently.

The Master sized him up and with what he knew of such things. He then turned to Luke. "The time of The Harvest is approaching. We must be prepared to deal with this second girl you mentioned."

Luke snatched his gaze away from Whistler. "Master? Of course. But the-" he said, looking back to see that the Balance Demon was gone already.

-

Khel'Futurias floated back over Sunnydale, feeling a little giddy from the radiation she'd absorbed from that radioactive disaster area in Russia. The sun was just starting to crest the mountains to the far off east. Sudden, bright flashes of yellow exploded in the grounds near the school, leaving bright burning flares behind. She zoomed off and say a man casually walking among the lights. He seemed to squint up at her and then waved.

Khel'Futurias landed in front of him, even if she felt that something was off about this situation. "Yes? Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes. You can go back to your own realm and not muck up this world! You are upsetting delicate balances here, girl!" Whistler said harshly. "You Celistins are not supposed to come to this world and you know it! You are breaking very important treaties."

"I am no Celistins." Her voice suddenly shifted. "_We are not of this reality and are not bound from helping the lesser races by any treaty, no matter what world they reside upon!_" her Kheldian essence, Corona Bright Flash, said directly, something it did not do lightly. There was much prejudice against creatures that melded with humans in Paragon City.

"Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. Luckily, but we took steps to remove you. The Powers are loathe to use the Hell Mouth, but it is the only way to deal with this _problem_," the Balance Demon said, even as a large sigil of an arcane nature burst into light around Khel'Futurias in the field of short-cropped grass.

She suddenly realized that she'd landed _right_ where he'd wanted, just like some brand new hero off an airplane. "Damn it!" she cried out, even as she threw herself against a barrier, a barrier that was far harder than steel!

"The more you fight it, the more it will hurt! We are just sending you back where you came from, before you came through the Hell Mouth," Whistles said conversationally. It wasn't very often that the Powers interfered this directly.

"You are sentencing us to death! We had to escape that realm before the energies there destroyed us!" Khel'Futurias said, even as her charged-up fists struck sparks off the barrier.

"That's a shame, but doesn't really change what has to happen. The whole world teeters on the edge of a war you can't comprehend," he argued back.

He was a fanatic, she realized. She only had moments to act to save herself. She still had too much to live for! So many innocents to atone for that she had killed back when she'd been under the sway of Epochius! "_I won't go into the dark quietly!_" she yelled out, reaching deep into her psyche and essence, using her anger as a tightly wound weapon. Light burst from within her, like a fragment of a star suddenly unleashed on the surface of the planet.

Whistler staggered back as the ground shook slightly, suddenly worried even as he shielded his eyes from the impossible light coming from the girl. How much power did she have?

Khel'Futurias suddenly blasted everything she had into the ground below her with all her might. Then with every erg of her being she clenched that energy up to her chest with her fists and then released it all in one stupendous burst.

The mystical barrier that Whistler had prepared held for one agonizing moment, before shattering like a soap bubble. Most of the force was directed up into the sky or down into the ground, carving a huge crater into the lawn.

The Balance Demon had already departed. He wanted nothing to do with someone that could break _that_ ward.

All that was left was a terribly drained and weakened heroine, collapsed and unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer:

-

Disclaimer: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and City of Heroes do not belong to me. Futurias, Khel'Futurias and Nict'Futurias do, however. Not that I'm planning on using any of this professionally.

-

Buffy was craning her neck, trying to look and see what the commotion was across the school yard through the crowd of students and teachers. She really hated being short. Suddenly, right behind her a voice spoke up.

"You aren't planning on being late, are you, Miss Summers?" Mr. Flutie asked from right behind her, causing her to jump.

"Um, nope. Just trying, and failing, to see what's going on," the blonde replied with a disarming smile. "Everyone is looking, but I'm soooo short."

"Buffy!" Xander called out as he walked up, Willow and Jesse trailing behind even as they stared at the crowd.

The principal was looking frustrated. "And exactly where were you this morning at six o'clock?" he all but accused her loudly.

"Being woke up by my mom because there was some sort of accident on the news," Buffy replied sweetly. "She was worried that we might have to evacuate and I'd miss my second day of school!"

"Fine! Get to class!" the pudgy man snapped out.

Buffy walked in, followed by Xander and Willow, though they split up to get to their own lockers.

-

Buffy walked into her first class and stopped, feeling some tension from the students about one figure sitting off to the side. "Hey, Ali!" she called out as she slipped into the seat besides the leather wearing heroine that was being pointedly ignored by the rest of the class. Buffy frowned. Alythea had a slightly different leather outfit. The leather was a very, very deep purple and had even more straps. And was that a mesh shirt instead of a cutoff t-shirt?

Alythea looked over at Buffy, eyes narrowed in concentration. "Do I know you? I think I... do. Why can't I remember?" she asked, worry starting to creep into her voice.

Cordelia looked over from her knot of girls. "I'd stay away from that freak, Buffy! She was sitting in here before anyone else, even Marty." A chorus of 'yeahs' followed from her groupies.

Buffy just rolled her eyes, even as she leaned closer. "Did something happen last night? Connected to that big hole outside?"

The white-haired girl frowned in thought. "Yes."

That was when the teacher walked, cutting off any further discussion, though Buffy managed to whisper to Alythea to zip her jacket slightly so she would not be kicked out of class.

-

It was during the next period that Buffy dragged Alythea to the library, followed by Xander, Willow and Jesse.

Giles set the globe spinning, then stops it as he begins to speak. "This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to mainstream religion, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their- their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals; and eventually mankind. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magics, ancient creatures-" He had finished walking down from the upper level.

"Vampires," Buffy interrupted intently.

"I dislike fighting vampires and demons," Alythea complained. She unzipped her jacket to open it slightly and leaned back, attracting the hormone-laden attention of Xander and Jesse when they saw that she was wearing only a mesh shirt, much to Willow's displeasure.

Giles coughed. "So, vampires are real-"

Like a well rehearsed skit, Xander and Jesse spoke up. Xander started with, "There's a problem with this conversation."

"Yeah. We're talking about real live-" Jesse continued.

"Well, living impaired," the other boy interjected.

"-Vampires!" Jesse finished with a glare at Xander.

"I think I should sit down," Willow said faintly.

Alythea tilted in her seat to get a better look at Willow sitting in her seat. "Aren't you sitting down?"

"Oh, good." Willow did not actually look good at all.

"Vampires are demons?" Jesse asked.

"The books of lore say that the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human and then mixed their blood. He was a human possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return," Giles went on, explaining like a musty old tome.

"Huh. That's a lot different from where I'm from," Alythea said. "Well, different from the ones The Council makes. I never learned about the vampires that only appear around Halloween. Something about dimensional shears and the Axis Mundi being used by spell casters."

Giles raised an eyebrow at that and started rubbing his glasses clean. After he was finished, he slid them back on his nose. "And where exactly are they making these vampires for this council?" he asked worriedly.

"Alternate reality in a place called Paragon City. But those vampires are super-soldiers for a fascist covert army attempting to take over that Earth. Not demons."

"That makes me feel so much better that I don't have to fight _that_ many vampires," Buffy said. "Not that I want to fight vampires. But that's my job. And we aren't getting very far with it right now. We don't have any leads at all."

Alythea suddenly grinned. "Sure we do. We know that two separate vampires took two different people to that crypt."

"D'oh! Right! So I'll just head back there and check around!" the blonde said as she slapped her forehead.

"Not alone!" Xander said unexpectedly. "We'll head there with you." Jesse was nodding right along with him.

"No way!" Buffy exclaimed.

"For as long as there have been vampires, there's been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. It is too dangerous for you children," Giles said in agreement.

"That was rude," the white-haired girl interjected. "It's more polite to ask if they have appropriate abilities! Like super-strength. Incredibly fast reflexes! Being bullet proof and the such!"

"But we don't have anything like that. Well, except Buffy, I guess," Willow said uncertainly.

"We want to help!" Jesse said earnestly.

Alythea stood up, towering over everyone. "Then you shouldn't go _right now_. If you don't even have special training and equipment, you are just putting yourself in danger to get killed."

"So we shouldn't do anything about the monsters in the night?" Xander asked, looking upset.

"No, you should just train yourselves up so you can fight them. Would you ask someone without _any_ training to be a cop and be sent to a bank robbery?" Alythea said, holding up her hand to stop Buffy or Giles from interrupting. "I'll even train you a bit, if you like. But not right this moment."

"I guess that makes sense," Jesse said finally. Xander and Willow nodded glumly.

"Then stay here and we'll go after school to do some training. Buffy and I will head to crypt to ferret out this nest of Vampires."

"Hey! Who put you in charge?" Buffy exclaimed.

"I'm sorry?" Alythea looked very confused. "Did I say something to upset you?"

"Why do you think you are coming along?" the much shorter girl snapped out.

"Oh. I thought you wanted some backup, like last night. I think," the taller heroine said. "Why can't I remember exactly what happened. I just have snatches and bits."

"We should leave this up to Buffy. She's the one with the special abilities," Giles interjected.

"So does Alythea. Heck, I think she's got better powers. I mean, she can _fly_ G-Man!" Xander piped up while looking at Alythea while trying not to stare at her.

Alythea looked at Xander in consternation. While she could fly... that was only in one of her Warshade alternate forms. "I've been a hero for years, protecting Paragon City from numerous threats. I can handle myself." Even if she was feeling very out of it right now. But she should be up enough to deal with these vampires, she thought.

"I wouldn't mind you helping. Heck, I may even take you up on some of that training," Buffy said impishly. "But we should check that crypt out now, during the day."

"Sure. Willow, Xander, Jesse? Write down what skills you have and what you can get a hold of. We'll need that so I can figure out what to train you on," Alythea said as she walked towards the library door, Buffy right behind her.

"Actually, I could use some help researching something I came across about a Harvest. I think it might be talking about now and here, in Sunnydale," Giles asked the remaining trio. Both Xander and Jesse didn't look too thrilled, but nodded.

Willow, on the other hand, was quite happy to be included.

-

"Why are you being stealthy?" Alythea asked as they walked towards the side door. Buffy was slinking along, keeping an eye out for hall monitors and teachers.

"We're cutting classes, a definite no-no according to the teachers. So we don't want to get in trouble, hence the sneakage!" she replied, even as she poked her head around the corner. The coast was clear.

"Oh? Is that it. I can handle getting us out of the school yard easily. Hang tight," Alythea offered even as she tried to peer out the door down the hall. With a purple-snap, she disappeared.

Buffy just blinked. "What was that?" About five seconds later, she felt a tug in her navel and was suddenly standing in the bright sunlight down the street from Sunnydale High School. "How the hell did you do that?"

"Oh, I just folded space so that point A equals point B. Makes traveling a lot faster," Alythea said. She just wished that she could accurately sense more than eyeball distance. She could just have teleported directly to the site. "Come on. That graveyard wasn't too far."

Buffy frowned. When Alythea had disappeared, it hadn't been the very-white flash from last night. It had been purple... dark. Almost black. Something had happened. And she was going to figure it out.

-

Buffy and Alythea walked into the Crypt and started searching, when a voice startled them. "I knew you two would figure out this entryway sooner or later. Actually, I thought it was gonna be a _little_ sooner. Like last night," the mysterious man from Buffy's trip to the Bronze said.

Alythea looked at him in bewilderment. "Do I know you?"

"This was stalkering dude from last night," Buffy explained. "The guy who took off after you showed up."

"I was just trying to warn you. So you wouldn't get killed." He held up a box, slightly scuffed. "I even brought you this." He tossed it to Buffy.

She opened the box, to see a little silver crucifix. "How nice."

"It's to keep the vampires away. But you shouldn't go down there," he said, nodding at the door in the back of the crypt that was locked up.

"We need to remove the vampires from being a threat to the community!" Alythea declared. "I won't let them hurt any innocents."

"What she said. Rah rah rah! So down we go," Buffy said.

"The Harvest is tonight. Unless you stop it, the Master will walk the Earth again," the dark-haired man declared.

"So why don't you stop it?" the Slayer asked.

"Because I'm scared," he replied truthfully.

"Who are you? And why do you know these vampires?" Alythea asks, staring intently at him. He didn't look quite human. He was very pale.

"I'm Angel," he said mysteriously. "If you go down there, head towards the school. You should run into them shortly," he said even as he leaned up against the wall of the crypt.

"That's a pretty name," Buffy said, looking at the stranger intently.

"Buffy, we need to get going," the heroine said. She pointed one hand at the door and unleashed a burst of purple-black energy, shearing the lock off.

"Right. Stopping the badguys first." Buffy hurried to follow the much taller girl.

"Good luck. Both of you," Angel whispered to the empty room.

-

"Oh? Hey, Buffy? Did you want a mask?" Alythea asks about five minutes later.

"What?" Buffy replies, giving Alythea a strange look, like she was crazy or something.

"You had mentioned that you wanted a secret identity, didn't you? I'm pretty... sure... that you mentioned that. I think you did," the pale giantess said, her voice confused again.

"Oh, yeah. But I thought you didn't have any other outfits?" the slayer asked.

"I've got 'super' outfits." With a snap, she pulled out a domino mask from thin air. "Do you need more? I'd suggest pulling your hair back too."

"How does it stay on?" she asked.

"Some sort of nanotech adhesive. Stays on pretty tight, but releases when you start peeling the edge," Alythea replied. With another snap, she shifted to her full hero garb.

An outfit that Buffy had never seen before. It looked _similar _to her previous yellow and white outfit of acute angles, but was in black and deep purple. It even had the long, flowing cape. The diamond on her chest was outlined in a soft lavender though. The only skin showing was a little bit around her eyes and her mouth. Her skin and hair was startling white in contrast to the dark outfit. "Um, nice change. For sneaking around, right?" She tried to adhere the mask to her face, where it promptly fit quite snuggly. They she pulled her hair back tight with a scrunchy from her pocket.

"Something like that!" Nict'Futurias said. "Try to be as sneaky as possible." She then started leading the way. It felt like her quantum-state was not stable enough for her to attempt to use her cloaking power. She was operating at a weaker state than she was used to, which did not make her happy.

They had been traveling for about an hour when they spotted the first pair of vampires, just as they were in turn spotted. Both vampires shifted to their game-face with snarling smiles. Buffy ducked the first punch and countered with two short jabs to his stomach, sending him reeling.

The other vampire slammed a punch at Nict'Futurias, which she tried to block. Energy flared, absorbing most of the force of the blow. Her hand reached out, releasing deep purple energy that entrapped the vampire with punishing gravity. Bones started snapping. "Need a hand, Slayer?" the Warshade asked.

"No, I'm good!" Buffy responded, even as she lashed out a kick. When the vampire slammed against the wall, she was right behind him to slam a stake home. She pulled it out, just before he turned to dust.

"I guess I better finish this up," Nict'Futurias said as she raised both hands and blasted the trapped vampire so he skidded along the wall, only to crumble to the ground. She followed up with eyebeams that knocked him unconscious.

"Huh. That's new," the Slayer said as she finished him off with her stake. "I wonder how many vampires there are down here?"

"I don't know. I don't think I'm up to taking on an army," the taller heroine replied.

An hour later and six more fights, they were starting to think that they really might have bit off more than they could chew. More vampires started showing up during their latest fight, forcing them to retreat back down a corridor.

"This isn't looking good. And I'm seeing more eyes back there," the Slayer said, even as she kicked a vampire back into the second rank.

"No, not good at all. In here!" Nict'Futurias said as she spotted a doorway off to the side, then following her own advice and ducked into the room.

The Slayer was right behind her and together they forced the door closed. The blonde spotted a grate, letting in light from above. "We might be able to get out there!"

"Right! One exit, coming up!" the purple-clad heroine yelled out, disappearing in a flash of dark energy.

Buffy was starting to get worried, as the vampires were tearing the door down. She felt the tug and then disappeared into thin air, much to the consternation of the vampires. She blinked her eyes against the monrning light. "Great timing, Ali!" Buffy said with a grin.

"Glad I could help," she replied, just before her knees gave out. She looked quite astonished at her infirmity as she fell to her knees. At least she was quite surprised, until she collapsed into unconsciousness.

"Ali!"

-

"Mom! I'm home!" Buffy called out, hoping her mother wasn't home yet. She wasn't sure how she'd explain this.

"Right here, honey!" Joyce Summers called out from the kitchen. She walked out, wiping her hands with a towel.

Buffy froze, holding the much larger and unconscious heroine over her shoulder in the doorway. They looked a frightful mess, caked in dust and their own blood from scratchs, even a few bites. "Um..."

"Buffy?" her mother asked, taking in the messed up figures dirtying up her carpet. That looked like her daughter under all the grime. "Why are you wearing a mask?"

"Would you believe I'm a super powered hero with a secret identity?" she replied glibly, fear covering her voice.

"And her?" Joyce asked faintly.

"Ditto! Except she passed out after we escaped the vampires. I think she overdid it." Buffy kicked the door closed behind her. "Um, where should I put her?" The house was still a moderate disaster while they were finishing moving in.

"There's a drop cloth there. We'll put that over your bed," she responded very softly. She took a step, and then another, jarring herself back into motion. By the time she caught up to Buffy in her bedroom, her daughter had already gotten the caped figure laid out on the drop cloth.

"Well, that should keep most of the blood off of my bed," the Slayer said while peeling her mask off. It came off just like Alythea had said it would. Neato.

"How do you get her outfit off?" Joyce asked. It looked like she'd been attacked by a whild animal. Or a pack of them.

"I dunno. She just sorta pops back and forth between outfits. I _wish_ I had clothing like that," her daughter said enviously.

"Magic?" the older woman asked with a bit of sarcasm lacing her words.

"No. She mentioned nano-tech held on my mask, so I'm thinking technology."

"Who knew Arthur C. Clarke was right?" Joyce laughed, even as she started looking at the wounds closer. "Well, get out of your clothing and go bring me some towels and a bucket of hot water."

"Who was what?" Buffy asked as she headed for the bathroom.

"You need to read more, dear."

Alythea woke up just a few minutes later, staring at a ceiling in confusion. She was on a bed of some sort, boxes lay around her. Had she been captured? A pain in her arm drew her attention to a woman with short blonde hair scrubbing at one of her wounds.

"Hello. My daugher says you were wounded fighting vampires," Joyce said conversationally as she dabbed at the wound with neosporin.

"Yes. We over estimated how many were in the warrens under the graveyard," Alythea said, only wincing slightly at one point when Joyce scrubbed a little harder.

"Aren't you a little old to believe in vampires?" the mother asked in a soothing, calm voice.

"How old do you have to be?" the pale heroine asked curiously.

Joyce smiled. "Usually about ten years old."

"Oh, then no."

"No what?" the older woman asked, throwing away the little cottonball.

"No, I am not too old to believe in vampires." Alythea was getting confused.

"And how old are you then?" Joyce asked, stopping for a second. She was giving the girl a very strange look.

Buffy was standing in the doorway, stuck in absolute terror. This was not good. Ali was going to say something crazy sounding, she could just bet on it.

"I was decanted from a nanotechnology assmbler just under five years ago. Precisely four years, eleven months, twelve days, two hours and twelve minutes ago subjectively," Alythea said with a totally flat voice. This was not something she really wanted to talk much more about.

"That's shocking even to me," Buffy said as she stepped in to her bedroom. She was wearing a huge t-shirt and handed her mother two towels.

"Sit down, Buffy! I need to clean out those wounds out too." Joyce was functioning on pure 'motherness' right now.

Buffy sat down on the bed. "Just need some bandages. Most of these will be healed by tonight," she said as she started cleaning the bigger gashes with a cottonball and cleanser, hissing at the contact.

"Buffy! These are serious. They could become infected!"

"Nah! It's all part of the Slayer package. Stronger, tougher, faster and healing very, very quickly. I usually don't even scar," her daughter replied.

Joyce stopped as the words sank in. She watched as Buffy cleaned another scratch and bandaged it. "What do you mean 'Slayer Package'?"

_"For as long as there have been vampires, there's been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One,"_ Alythea said, mimicking Gile's voice amazingly well.

"Right-" Buffy said slowly. "A superheroine to defeat demons and vampires." She was quite pale, her face shining with worry.

"Buffy, you don't have super powers," her mother snapped out. "This is nonsense!" She stood up and started to pace in the small bed room.

"Just show her. Lift up the bed or something, Buffy," Ali ordered.

"But-"

"Super strength is the easiest to prove power."

Buffy blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, then nodded. Joyce was watching her baby girl in bewilderment, then shock as she easily picked up the bed _and_ Alythea by the end of the bed-frame. "It's a little clumsy and awkward. I think I can pick up the car, but I don't want to drop it," Buffy said conversationally, ending up grinning impishly.

"I think she gets it," the bedridden girl said satirically.

"Spoilsport!" the Slayer shot back.

Joyce's eyes rolled up and then she collapsed bonelessly. Buffy almost caught her, but released her bed in her efforts. The bed crashed to the floor with a broken sproing sound and flipped Alythea right out of the bed with a thump.

"Ow. That hurt," Alythea said, holding her arm.

"Sorry!" Just fainted, Buffy discovered. That had totally scared her to death.

"It's all right," the other girl said. "I guess I need to do something about these cuts." She stood up wobbily. "Where is the bathroom?" She followed Buffy's nod in the direction of the said bathroom.

Joyce awoke with a start in just a few minutes, confused and dazed. "Buffy? Oh, I had a nightmare that you skipped school to hunt vampires."

"Well, funny you should mention that," Buffy said, laughing nervously. She was in the middle of wrapping her bandages.

"You did not skip school on your second day, did you?" her mothering instincts suddenly kicking in. "Buffy! You don't want to get kicked out of school again, do you?"

"No! Totally not! But we had to try and deal with the vampires, before anyone else was taken. They almost got Willow and Jesse last night," Buffy countered. "But when Ali collapsed, this was the only place I could think of to take her."

"Yes, thanks for the bandages. We probably should get back to class," the white-haired heroine said, patting herself dry with a very dark towel, wearing not a stitch of clothing, though quite a few bandages. She folded the towel up, then in a blink was back in her 'school outfit' as she had started thinking it. "You probably want to soak those towels so they don't stain."

"Ali, you really need a different shirt," Buffy said with a sigh. "That outfit is going to get you kicked out of school. Let me loan you a t-shirt."

"But this is a Sergio special. He made it specifically for me, though his styles are a bit extreme at times."

Buffy was already grabbing a t-shirt even as Joyce watched on, seeing her normal daughter shine through the oddity. "Take of that jacket. And the shirt."

In a minute, Alythea was wearing the biggest t-shirt that Buffy had for sleeping, tucked in. The cute rabbit didn't seem to fit the jacket at all. Buffy had slipped into another blouse and skirt while asking her mother some inanities about the color coordination.

"We still have some talking to do, young lady! I want to hear more about this Slayer business!" Joyce called out.

"Sure, Mom! Tonight!" Buffy called. As they walked towards school, she asked, "Can you zap us back inside the fence?"

"I think so," Alythea replied.

-

Giles looked up as Buffy and Alythea entered the library late that afternoon. Buffy slid into a seat and theatrically declared, "I'm doooomed." After her pronouncement, she let her forehead hit the tabletop.

Jesse, Xander, Willow and Giles all looked at her quite worriedly. Xander finally piped up with, "And you are doomed why?"

"My mom found out about me being the Slayer. Please tell me it can't get worse?" she whined back, head still face down on the table.

"How about the end of the world?" Giles replied dryly. He put his pen down and walked over to a whiteboard. "This is what we we have found out. Just over sixty years ago, a very old, very powerful vampire came to this shore." Buffy raised her head off the table at that.

"Because of the dimensional portal?" Alythea asked.

"Yes. The Spanish who first settled here called it 'Boca del Infierno'. Roughly translated, 'Hellmouth'. A gateway between our reality and another. A Hell. This vampire hopes to open it," the Watcher explained.

"So evil seeps through into our Earth?" Jesse asked morbidly.

"Yes, exactly. And evil creatures such as vampires and demons are drawn here as well," Giles said while nodding.

"And he wants bring the demons back?" Buffy asked worriedly.

"End of the world," Xander exclaimed.

Jesse chimed in with, "Game over!"

Willow rolled her eyes at the two boys. "But he blew it! Or, I mean, there was an earthquake that swallowed half the town, and him, too."

"Very lucky that," Alythea replied thoughtfully. "Amazingly lucky, actually."

Giles and Willow looked at each other at the insinuation. Something else to check on.

"Yes, as you say. But it is now that we need to be worried about. The Master got himself stuck half way. Like a cork in a bottle, so to speak," Giles continued.

"This Harvest thing you and Willow found is to get him unstuck?" Jesse asked uncertainly.

"Exactly. It comes once in a century on this night. The Master can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. Enough power to break free and open the portal. The minion is called the Vessel, and he bears this symbol," the Watcher said, starting to draw a three-pointed star on the white board.

"So, I dust anyone sporting that symbol and no Harvest," Buffy said, looking at the symbol intently.

"And no end of the world!" Jesse exclaimed.

"Any idea of where this little shindig is going to be?" the Slayer asked, turning to everyone. Everyone was disconcerted except for Xander.

"The Bronze," Xander said smugly.

"Makes sense. That's where they went last night," Alythea agreed.

"Public place, no invitation and lots of young blood. Make _perfect_ sense," Buffy agreed.

Giles goes and grabs his coat. "Then we should get there. The sun will be down before long."

Buffy sighed. "I'll catch up. Time for my inquisition."

"Will you be all right, Buffy?" Alythea asked.

"Yeah!" Xander piped up.

"It's just my Mom. I don't think she's going to do more than ground me for life or something." Buffy had her shoulder's hunched over, showing her distress for all to see..

Alythea tossed a pebble-sized lump of plastic to the Slayer. "Put that in your ear. When you want a pickup, just let me know. I'll just teleport you."

-

Alythea popped into existence onto the roof of the Bronze, just before sunset. It was a moment's concentration to pull Giles, Willow, Jesse and Xander to the roof with her. As Alythea snapped into existence, she triggered her costume change, shrouding herself in tight purple and black, letting her cape swirl behind her in the small breeze.

"You brought your weapons again?" Nict'Futurias asked intently. Xander and Jesse had caught up to her just after school to go over some training, though it had been mostly cut short.

Giles pulled out a crossbow from a duffel bag, Xander had a fireman's axe and Jesse had a compound bow and a quiver full of arrows. Willow shrugged helplessly. "Not much with the fighting, sorry."

"You'll have to find some way to fight. Otherwise, you'll have to stay totally out of the fight," Nict'Futurias.

"I brought some binoculars so I can help spot them!" the redhead replied, pulling out said binoculars.

"Keep an eye out in the direction of that graveyard then. Hopefully we'll spot them early enough to intercept ." The five would be heroes spent the next twenty minutes going over strategies while Nict'Futurias explained how to not draw attention to themselves while staking out the roof.

Suddenly, she tilted her head like she was listening to something. "Hold up a second." The super heroine held up her hand, palm out. In a burst of black energy, Buffy appeared looking quite angry and upset.

"Thanks. That is so very handy and oh so useful. If I had that power, I'd never be late," Buffy started saying, showing how upset she was by babbling. "My mother would never have a complaint about timeliness or punctuality or missing dinner or-"

"Buffy, you are being loud enough to draw attention to us up here," the super heroine said in a low, conversational voice.

Xander and Jesse both chuckled at Buffy's priceless expression. Willow called out, "I think I see something."

"Slowly turn. No sudden moves," Alythea ordered softly. "Buffy, your mask."

It was a large group of vampires walking brazenly up to the front door of the Bronze, game-faces on and ready to rumble.

"I don't see the Vessel!" Willow said while still looking through her binoculars.

From near the back of the building, Giles waved carefully and held up nine fingers.

"The back door will have to be opened. Probably by this group in the front. Ready to ambush them?" Nict'Futurias asked. At Buffy's nod, she then instructed, "Give me a two second count, then drop in the middle."

Abruptly, she trotted four steps and then leaped into the air to land in the middle of the flabbergasted vampires below her. "Hello!" she called out even as her outstretched hands started drawing in darkness like some sort of reverse starlight. Each of the vampires felt a stretching, a pulling as sparks of purple light were drawn from them and into her.

Purple gloved hands unleashed an explosive bolt of negative energy that impacted one vampire. Once it hit that surprised vampire, it exploded with deafening force, knocking all of the other vampires over like tenpins.

Buffy landed adroitly next to the the closest vampire laying on the ground just as the explosive force dissipated. One thrust of her very pointy stake and the vampire went poof with a comical expression of surprise.

Crushing gravity encompassed the next nearest vampire from Nict'Futurias' left hand, causing him to crush into a swirling dustball. The vampires were getting back on there feet, angry beyond belief. That was when the first crossbow thudded into a female vampire's chest, dusting her.

"Hi! Welcome to our ambush! Five for one Vampire Dusting at your service!" Buffy quipped, then taking advantage of their shock to stake another vampire.

Another vampire sprouted an arrow from Jesse's bow, but did not explode into dust.

"Run!" screamed the oldest remaining vampire, taking off back towards the cemetery.

The more experience heroine grabbed Buffy's shoulder before she could take off after the fleeing monsters. She said, "The vampires at the back entrance!"

"Right!" the Slayer cried, leaping up to a window and then flipping herself up to the roof, just in time to see three vampires land on the roof from the rear side of the building.

"Wha's goin' on?" the larger and more brutish vampire asked as he cracked his knuckles.

"Buffy!" Giles called out. "Your target just kicked in the back door."

Xander had his axe out, but did not look too thrilled to try to use it, while Jesse had his bow at the ready. Willow pulled a cross out, hoping that it would ward the vampires back.

"Too bad, you won't live to get off this roof," the second of the trio boasted.

"Slayer! Go!" Nict'Futurias shouted as she blinked into existence behind the vampires. Before any of the vampires could react, she had blasted the nearest vampire with eye-beams of purple-darkness, knocking him forward and onto the ground in front of Xander.

With a hard swallow, the young jokester brought down the axe as hard as he could on the vampire's head. While the vampire didn't poof into dust, he did go completely limp. Two projectiles from Giles _and_ Jesse's weapons hit another vampire, which did explode into dust. The final standing vampire backed off a bit uncertainly. It was a whole group of vampire hunters.

He barely had a moment to consider running when Nict'Futurias encompassed him form her outstretched hand in a gravitic field that imprisoned him tightly. "I'm going after the Slayer to guard her back! Finish this one off quickly!" With a snap-crack of purple energy, she disappeared.

Giles pulled out a mean looking stake from under his jacket and finished off the helpless vampire. "Now how do we get down from here?" he asked.

The three students looked at each other. "Check the door?" Jesse finally said, pointing to the roof-access doorway.

-

Buffy ducked and then jabbed out, staking a vampire. She was looking around frantically inside the Bronze for the Master's Vessel. "Come out, come out, where ever you are!" she cat-called to the crowd. Screaming teens were trying to push out the front door even as the vampires were attacking.

Nict'Futurias appeared in a burst of dark energy, spotting a figure laying on the ground limp and unmoving. "Slayer? Any luck?" she called out over her shoulder to Buffy. The white-haired heroine knelt over the body, taking in the darker hair of Cordelia. She fumbled a capsule from a hidden utility pouch.

She had just pressed the ampule of nanobots against Cordillia's neck when Luke appeared behind her, swinging an entire table to smash against her upper back. Nict'Futurias was sent rolling, limp and unmoving when she came to a halt. Luke sneered at the spandex clad girl. A bit of motion to his side, caught his attention as he barely twisted out of the way of the Slayer's stake. "Why the mask, girly?" he asked.

"Well, duh! Secret indentity! Isn't that why everyone wears masks?" she quipped even as she blocked as strong punch towards her face. She ducked the next attack, then rolled backwards in a cartwheel, catching Luke's chin as she spun back to land on her feet.

Luke growled and lunged at the Slayer again, though she danced to the side and snapped a kick at his right knee. "I'll feast on your blood!" he roared.

"Sheesh! You vampires really need to get a few new lines," she nattered back, totally annoying the powerful vampire. "Feast this. Drink that. Crush this person. Hello! Melodramitic much?" She then feinted a punch at the big vampire, ducked under the minion that was trying to sneak up on her and staked the lowly vampire.

But that left her vulnerble for a moment, which Luke quickly exploited to smash her with a punishing right hook that sent her flying. "Not so funny now, eh Slayer?" he crowed. He staggered for a second as twin black-purple beams struck him from behind.

Giles and the other vampire hunters from the roof appeared on the upper balcony. Giles and Jesse started firing at the remaining vampires, sending them scattering. Xander moved to block any vampires coming up the stairs, Willow backing him up with her cross.

Nict'Futurias wiped a bit of her dark red blood from her mouth. Stop the Vessel first, save the world _then_ try to save as many civilians that were already hurt. "Think quick!" she said, then disappeared and reappeared behind him, but opposite the Slayer. She fired another beam of energy from her hands at the powerful vampire.

Luke roared in anger. Those blasts were hurting. He was going to crush that caped heroine very, very painfully. Suddenly, he stopped and looked down, to see a spike of wood sticking out of his chest. With a poof, he dusted. The Slayer was smirking behind him, even as she turned to the other vampires that were left.

All of the other vampires shared a quick, worried look and then took off towards the front door.

-

In the Hellmouth, the Master roared in anger. Something had happened. Someone had disrupted his carefully laid plans. And whoever that was would die painfully.

He pushed against the forces that had him trapped. A small tremor shook the earth.

-

The Bronze was strangely silent, leaving just the heroines, the other kids and Giles amid the carnage of the attack.

"Very good, Buffy!" the Watcher said happily.

"All in a night's work!" the Slayer chirped right back, giddy with having stopped the upcoming apocolypse.

Nict'Futurias nodded happily. "You did a good job!" Moving her head rapidly had an unintended effect, sending her staggering. "Wow, he hit really hard," she noted to herself.

"I think you better sit down, Ali!" Willow said worriedly.

They had her sitting down while Jesse and Xander checked for injured kids. There were four dead and three that were critical. Giles had them call 911 and then turned back to Buffy. "I think it is time to leave."

"If we won, why do I feel so bad?" she replied as she stared at the dead bodies.

Xander looked unhappy, but finally spoke up with, "But how many people _did_ you save? I think that's the more important question."

Jesse snickered. "Heck. We just helped save the world, didn't we? Too bad we aren't going to get a medal or something!"

Giles coughed to get everyone's attention. "Be that as it may, I think we need to leave before the police shows up. We will meet back at the libary tomorrow morning."

"Guys, I don't think Ali is up to moving on her own," the redhead said urgently. She was actually holding the dazed heroine up in her chair.

Buffy walked over and hefted Alythea over her shoulder. "Don't worry, I've got her." They quickly trotted out the back door as the police and paramedics slammed into the front door.

Buffy found herself in an unusual situation. Finally, she decided that she would just drag Buffy home again. Besides, she did not think that Alythea had any place to go. And living on the street was just not safe in Sunnydale. The blonde had just managed to open the door while holding the much larger girl from banging her head when she spotted her mother.

"Oh. Hi Mom." Oh boy.


	3. Chapter 3

Beacon of Hope on the Hellmouth 3: Training.

-

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and City of Heroes are not owned by me, I'm merely borrowing things. Futurias, Khel'Futurias and Nict'Futurias are my own creations however.

-

"Mom! That is so unfair!" Buffy exclaimed. She was sitting on the couch, sporting a few new bandages while her mother cooked supper.

"Unfair? How is hiding that you fight undead monsters and getting grounded for lying about it 'unfair'?" Joyce retorted from the kitchen.

"If you'll remember, I _tried_ to tell you and Dad about it. But you guys thought I was trying to stop your divorce. You even sent me to see a shrink about burning down that gym full of vampires!" her daughter whined. "I didn't want to get committed to an insane asylum!"

Upstairs in Buffy's room, Alythea was laid out under the covers. Swirling light and darkness started to fade in and out all over her body.

'Our body is degenerating,' the bright white energy being said... for anyone that communicated with exotic energy fluxes.

'Your grasp of the obvious has not deteriorated at all in the lastmillennium, Corona Flare Burst,' the darker energy retorted.

'Are you going to be able to affect a positive change in our body's outlook, Ebon Roché?' the Peacebringer mentioned.

'No, not with our host as weakened and unconscious from Whistler's attack and the vampires the next day.' The Warshade sighed in a burst of exotic quantum strings. 'Very well. I will accede my mergence to you. Your archaic methods will have better luck in this case.'

Corona Flare Burst merely gave their races equivalent of a nod as Ebon Roché submerged in Futurias' psyche into a deep mental sleep. Then Corona Flare Bust entered into a meditative state and started to quantumly enhance the ravaged physical structure, boosting their combined essences.

Downstairs, Buffy had finally managed to convince Joyce that grounding her for life was not going to stop her from being the Slayer. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She blinked in surprise as she saw a small spark of white light drift up and into the ceiling. She looked around, seeing more insubstantial sparks floating up through the ceiling.

"Buffy? Are you listening to me?" Joyce called out. She turned down the stove and looked into the living room. She watched her daughter staring at the air, watching something that was not visible.

Buffy held up a hand to forestall her mother for a second, looking up at where her room was. She started stalking up the stairs towards her bedroom. Joyce followed nervously. Was something wrong? Up ahead of them, a light was shining underneath Buffy's bedroom door.

"Wait! I left that light off-"

"Not now, Mom." Buffy was in full Slayer mode, ready for a fight. She opened the door to her bed glowing with unearthly brilliance. Sparks of light were converging, merging with the figure on the bed that was made of light. "That's... different."

"She must be healing herself." The older woman's eyes were wide in wonder as the streams of sparkles flowed into the white light.

"Freaky. Not that I have a leg to stand on," Buffy said with a grin. "Let's leave her to her... whatever." She paused a second in thought. "Huh. Wonder if I can do something like this?"

Joyce closed the door, looking at her daughter with a question written in her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Alythea offered to train me up in super powers, fighting and such. And she knows her hero stuff."

The older woman frowned. She did not want her daughter putting herself into any danger. She should just be allowed to be a school girl!

On the other hand, perhaps getting Buffy the best training would keep her safer.

-

Ambassador Dolph Kreznik nodded to the Secret Service agents after they finished checking him for dangerous weapons. Soon they led him to the Oval Office and to the man he was here to see.

President Bill Clinton stood up and gestured towards a comfy chair. The only other person present was one of the Secretary of State's men, as he was out of town and could not make the meeting. "Ambassador Kreznik! How's your daughter doing in gymnastics?"

"She is doing, as you Americans say, okay. But I have very important things to discuss. You are aware of the incident above Chernobyl?" Dolph asked.

President Clinton tensed. "We heard that some sort of light and security breach, but no increase in radiation was detected."

"That is correct, but not because the container was not breached. It is because the mass of nuclear fuel at the site has been... neutralized, somehow." The Ukrainian was amused by their expression. It was nice to see that the Americans were merely mortal after all.

"Neutralized? By some weapon?" Bill Kelly asked.

"No, by a person. Reactor number three was cleansed by the super being that appeared in California just days ago."

-

Buffy was sitting in history, studying frantically. Somehow, during all the things that had happened last night, studying and writing her first assignment had fallen from her mind. So she and Alythea were studying and writing quickly before class started.

"What did you freaks **do** to me?" a outraged female voice asked from the doorway.

The two girls looked up, seeing Cordelia standing there. "Do **to**you?" Buffy asked, looking confused.

"I think she is referring to me. I attempted to save her life last night during the attack at the Bronze. It should not have caused any problems, but I was interrupted during the resuscitation," Alythea explained. "What is the problem?"

"The problem is that my tan is gone! And I have this totally inexplicable desire to eat raw meat, which is like gross to the max. And sunlight is giving me a nasty red sunburn just being outside for ten minutes! This is so going to require replacing my entire wardrobe. Nothing fits my complexion. And all my makeup-"

"But you aren't hurt?" Alythea asked, interrupting the other girl.

"My life is ruined!" Cordelia wailed. "Everyone will think I'm trying to be some sort of _goth_!" Indeed, she was very pale. A bandage was attached to her neck. Otherwise she was wearing her normal outfit which actually did not match her new pallor.

Alythea looked over at Buffy in confusion, who was looking on in shock. "Is being 'goth' bad?" she asked the vampire slayer.

"No, actually. But she's- She sounds like she might be some sort of vampire!" she exclaimed, eyes wide in horror.

"Like those freaks last night? They were vampires? With those deformed faces? Do I look like some sort of monster?" Cordelia started walking back and forth in agitation. "My life would really be over if I looked that horrid!"

Just then, several more students entered in.

"Cordelia? How about we finish this discussion after school?" Buffy said, looking around at the other students.

Cordelia pouted, but nodded.

-

"What are these dweebs doing here? I am so losing popularity just by breathing the same air!" she complained later that day after school. She was carefully standing in the shadows under a tree.

Xander, Jesse and Willow all bristled, while Buffy looked bemused at what she could have been. Alythea just looked a bit confused.

"Never mind," Buffy said quickly to forestall Alythea's question. It had become very obvious that the much taller girl had only limited social awareness. "Step into the sunlight, please."

Cordelia pouted but stepped into the sun. Buffy waited expectantly, but nothing really seemed to happen.

"I might be pale, but I'm not going to spontaneously combust!" she snarked even as she held up her right hand to shade her newly-sensitive eyes from the afternoon light.

Buffy grabbed her left hand, turned it over and put a finger to her pulse with her wrist. "She's alive?!"

"Well, duh! Standing right here, breathing and talking. So when did you get out the psycho ward?" she replied in her most condescending voice.

"What happened?" Jesse demanded. Buffy had mentioned that something had happened to the popular girl, but hadn't explained exactly what.

"Well, it goes like this," she started with.

_"Come on, Harmony! Jeez, you are taking forever!" Cordelia turned abruptly the the other members of her 'squad.' "Well, I'm heading back out to all those hunks. Try to not take all night!"_

_She was just passing the back exit when the door was suddenly ripped open, showing a brutish figure with a deformed face with a strange mark on his forehead at the front of a crowd of freaks._

_"Lovely. You will be a very nice replacement for Darla," the yellow-eyed horror said even as grabbed her._

_"Hey!" she started to protest, when he interrupted her by biting her neck with sharp fangs. She started to scream as she felt the other creatures head into the Bronze past them._

_Everything was fading to darkness for her when salty, metallic tang impinged on her taste-buds, cold and slimy as a dark night._

"And that's all I remembered until I woke up at the hospital. And the cops are worse than useless, telling me that I'd been attacked by some wild animal. Like the Bronze would even bother with a wild animal act! And when I tried to tell them about the freak, they just _told _me that it must have been a trick of the light, which doesn't explain anything about the fact that I felt those weird lumps on his head while I was trying to get away-"

"That was a vampire. He drank your blood and left you for dead," Buffy said cheerfully.

"Hello here! Not dead!" she snapped back.

"But you were dead," Alythea said. "I had to use a nano-stimulant to restart your heart, heal the major wound and clear out the toxin buildup in your blood from the lack of respiration. But it should not have caused a lack of coloring."

Willow looked over curiously. "Oh, I thought that might have caused your own skin condition?" The much taller girl just shook her head in negation of that.

Xander raised an eyebrow. "Well, when you were dead, you must have been infected with vampirism."

"And when you were brought to life, it halted your vampiric transformation!" Jesse spouted gleefully. "So you are only half of a blood-sucking monster!"

"It's gotta be an improvement from what you were!" Xander quipped.

Cordelia glared at him. "What the hell are you talking about? Vampires aren't real!"

Buffy just snickered and shared Xander's lop-sided grin. "Of course not. You weren't bitten on the neck by a vampire, that was a wild animal. And that guy just had really bad acne, that wasn't his demon showing its true face."

The darker-haired girl glared, then slumped in defeat. She put up her hand to ward the afternoon sun. "So I'll die if I'm in the sunlight?"

"Nah, vampires go poof really fast in sunlight. They literally _do_ catch on fire until they dust," the blonde explained.

"But my outfits. My lovely makeup! My entire image! I can't live as a goth!" she wailed again, showing her life's true priorities.

"I do not know how to reverse this. I am sorry I was not able to save your life more quickly or stop the vampires before they entered the Bronze," Alythea said awkwardly. She really didn't know how to handle a distraught person out of a crisis.

"Me neither, Cordy, but at least you are alive. Three other people aren't as lucky," the Slayer said, a hint of regret.

"But we saved the world! Don't forget that!" Xander exclaimed.

"Which brings us right back to the now! Training, right?" Willow said excitedly.

"Yup! I've got my bow and a lot of arrows. Xander brought his axe and Willow brought a stake and a cross," Jesse said. "We want to be able to protect ourselves. Heck, and help people too!"

"By learning to fight?" Cordelia asked, distracting herself from her personal problems.

"Yes, they aren't ready for front line fighting and I can only keep track of a single side-kick in combat effectively. So I offered to do some training." Alythea looked over at the half-vampire with a serious expression. "Anyone can be a hero."

"Well, I want to be able to protect myself too!" she said finally.

The other long time residents of Sunnydale grimaced, but could not really fault her for that desire. Buffy and Alythea shared a quick glance and then nodded to each other.

"I'm not going to say no. It'll give you more sparing partners. I asked Willow about a place far from anywhere where we could practice and she found us a place miles from anywhere else. It's up in the hills," Alythea explained.

"And how exactly are we going to get there? None of use have a vehicle," Cordelia noted.

-

The answer to that was both more exhilarating and terrifying than Cordelia would have imagined before this morning, as Alythea started to float off the ground while emitting a glowing field. Everyone around her started to float as she imbued them with an active gravity field under their mental control. She had everyone sorted out, though she had to drag Xander back as he tended to wander.

In just a few minutes, they landed in the quarry up in the hills about ten miles away. Alythea swayed as she looked around. "Not very high tech," she muttered in complaint. She kneaded her forehead. That hadn't worked out too well.

"We _so_ can't afford a Danger Room!" Xander quipped.

"Well, some of us got missed in the super-power raffle. I mean, you are carrying an _axe, _dude." Jesse grinned to his best male friend, who grinned right back.

"Right. Let's start with the non-super-powered people. What did you decide on?" Buffy asked. She wasn't sure that training normal people was a good idea, but it was just training. It wasn't like they were asking them wade into combat.

Xander held up his axe and stake. "I couldn't get any holy water easily."

Jesse showed off his compound bow and a big bowie. He also had a stake and his quiver full of arrows. "All set!"

"Doh! No wonder your arrows weren't working right. They're metal!" the Slayer exclaimed as she slapped her forehead.

"Hey! These are good quality hunting arrows!" Jesse protested.

"Vampires only go poof with from wooden stakes hitting their hearts," she explained.

Cordelia blanched at that. "Poof?" She listened morbidly as Buffy explained the ways to kill vampires. Staking through the heart, decapitation, fire and sunlight. "Hey, won't those kill normal people, too? Well, everything but the sunlight!"

Buffy just grinned. "Yeah, but vampires are pretty much immune to normal weapons and ways of killing them. Don't try to shoot a vampire with a gun. It'll just piss him off."

"Right. Willow?" Alythea asked.

"Um, I have a stake and a cross!" she said tentatively.

"Willow, using a stake alone to fight vampires is really tough. You have to be really, really good to do that," Buffy said uncertainly. "A cross will only keep a vampire at bay."

"So you can train me to fight, right?" she asked brightly.

"I didn't realize you had a death wish. Of course, if I had your life, I would have committed suicide years ago," Cordelia snarked.

"Hey!" Xander and Jesse exclaimed.

"Cordelia, you aren't helping. Willow, I don't think a stake is going to be enough for you. You need to find some weapon or talent you can use, or you are going to be a liability during a fight," Alythea said sternly. "You will just be putting everyone else in danger constantly."

Buffy frowned, but nodded. "You are a major brain, Wills, so I think you can figure out something. We'll do some basic sparring today and have you guys started on fitness training. Ali thinks that we all need to do that."

Alythea had Buffy practice with the three non-powered teens, while she worked with Cordelia to see what limits she had. She quickly found out that she was stronger and faster than normal, but unskilled. After changing off partners, it seemed Cordelia was very good for training with the non-powered trio, as she was about where a fledgling vampire was in skill according to Buffy.

"Okay, I'm going to steal Buffy for a second. We need to push her limits a bit," Alythea said about an hour later.

The slayer looked a little intimidated. "So, what's the plan?"

"Strength and speed," the albino replied. "Ready?"

Buffy got herself ready, arms up. Suddenly Alythea's fists were blurring towards her. "Shit!" she exclaimed as she only blocked about half of the punches. The white-haired heroine let her get herself ready and then launched another attack. This time she did slightly better.

"Come on! Push yourself!" she ordered.

"This isn't easy!" the Slayer exclaimed. She suddenly leaped to the attack, lashing out with her fists towards the much taller girl as fast as possible.

After ten minutes of this, Buffy's arms were sore and tingling.

The other four teens had been watching the last five minutes. Xander suddenly exclaimed, "That is so cool! It's like watching some kung-fu special effect!"

"Mondo neato!" Jesse echoed.

Standing behind the two boys, Willow didn't say anything but looked upset. How was she supposed to compete with that?

"Will I be able to weird-ass-freaky things like that?" Cordelia asked. She had managed to find some shade, as he skin was turning quite red in the sun.

"No reason you shouldn't. Okay, Buffy and Cordelia, let's have you do some lifting," Alythea said, pointing to some irregular boulders.

Buffy and Cordelia just groaned at that.

-

"What's with the pale?" Harmony asked. The other 'Cordettes' were with her, staring down their supposed leader.

"And hanging out with those losers!" another one asked.

"I'm getting some _help_ with my new skin condition, thank you very much!" Cordelia replied. "And that requires that I deal with Buffy and Alythea. It just happens to be my poor luck that they don't mind hanging out with those three losers!"

"Well, Buffy's pretty cool. But that freak Alythea... She's way too tall, too white, too pale and wears way too much leather. That is so grunge and punk!" Harmony replied.

"I have to get to class!" Cordelia said, turning her nose up and storming off to class.

The other girls all looked at each other. They had the expression of sharks scenting blood of wounded prey in the water.

"Say, you don't think that skin condition is contagious, do you?" one of the asked.

-

Barbara Carter rolled her car into a cheap motel's parking lot just an hour before sunset. She had a cheap room rented and moved in her luggage. She then pulled out a small hand tape-recorder and checked the batteries. She clicked it on. "I've arrived in Sunnydale, California. According to my contact in the FAA, the glowing super human was tracked going directly towards this small town several times. Is this her home town? Or does she have some reason to be here?"

She clicked it off. She decided to grab a bite to eat and then visit the local police. Maybe they'd have something for her. Just an hour later, she was walking down the main street and towards where the waitress had told her the police station was. She pursed her lips as she thought back to the derisive way that she'd been told of them. Usually the police were more respected than that. Even in L.A.

As someone that grew up and lived in L.A. she was always fairly aware of her surroundings. Once the sun had gone down, most people had headed inside _very _quickly. Only some kids were walking quickly to their homes in pairs or trios. Two kids were following her about a block back, but didn't seem that interested in sneaking up on her.

That was when the blur from the shadowed alleyway grabbed her. In just a moment she was pulled away from the street by the very strong thug. She reacted like any true urbanite, her ready mace spritzing him right in his face. He flung her away, bouncing her off the wall about ten feet further into the alley.

"That hurts bitch," the vampire said as his face deformed.

"What the hell are you!?" Barbara asked, even in the face of her terror.

"A vampire, of course!" said a figure at the alley's entrance, a domino mask covering her face.

"There's another one back there," the other, taller teen said.

"Shit, the Slayer!?" the first vampire said.

The taller figure, a white-haired girl, suddenly exploded with light, leaving a cape-clad figure in its place. With a burst of light, she flew past Barbara and slammed into a female vampire that had been skulking deeper in the alley. Buffy charged the first vampire, her hands blurring faster than he was expecting. He collapsed to his knees, groaning.

Without any preamble, Buffy staked the hunched over figure through his back. "Score!" the Slayer exclaimed.

The female vampire had put on her game face, throwing out a devastating punch which knocked Khel'Futurias back a few feet in the air. The super heroine clenched both fists with a burst of energy and brought it back down upon the vampire with devastating force, dusting it instantly with the star-based energies.

She floated down to the ground. "I knew there had to be some more vampires, Slayer."

"Yeah. But all the graveyards were empty!" the blonde complained.

"Probably figured that would be where you would check first. It's always better to assume that they are smarter than you think. Or at least better informed."

"Vampires. Real living... well, dead, vampires!" Barbara shook her head, sending her shoulder length brown hair askew even more. She pulled out her tape-recorder. "Excuse me, would you mind a quick interview. I'm Barbara Carter with the Los Angele's Times."

Buffy backed up immediately. She was so not getting interviewed. "Um, no thanks."

"I don't mind, but I think my friend would like to not be mentioned at all," Khel'Futurias said, looking over at the Slayer with a quick questioning glance.

"Um, okay. Could I get an exclusive when you do want to go public?" the reporter asked eagerly.

The Slayer thought about it a second. "Sure. But not until then, okay?"

"Fine!" The reporter looked quite pleased with herself. "So you are the person that saved the Flight 7104 to L.A.?"

"Yes. For some reason those creatures were tearing the engines off of it. I was unable to capture any of them, they jumped off during the fight. I was too busy trying to save the plane," Khel'Futurias explained.

"And what were the creatures? And why weren't the creatures mentioned by anyone else?" the reporter asked. A conspiracy?

"There were very small, slightly reptilian and a bit maniacal. I did not recognize them at all. I do not know why any officials did not mention these creatures." She suddenly looked thoughtful. She hadn't thought to check her 'debut' story later, so had missed that the creatures had not been mentioned.

"Hmm. I wonder if they are gremlins?" the Slayer mused aloud.

"Like the movie about mythical creatures?" Barbara said derisively.

Smirking, she just quipped right back with, "And vampires aren't mythological enough?"

"I thought the mythological meant magical or magic based creatures?" Khel'Futurias asked with a little confusion.

"Actually, myths are usually considered to be 'just stories' or 'fanciful histories from the ancient past.' Not real," Barbara said in explanation. Her knees almost buckled. "Oh, damn." The two heroines caught her before she fell.

"Let's get her seated. She's had a bad shock to her system," the blonde explained as the directed Barbara to a wooden crate.

"Sorry about this. I'm usually more together than this," the almost-victim said.

"You were almost killed. I think you deserve to lose it a little," the albino said, trying to show compassion as best as she could.

"Thanks."

When she got back to the interview, it was very enlightening and brought up a lot more questions. And worries.

-

"What in the unspeakable abysses of Usthl is this?" an impeccably dressed man with short gray hair behind the mahogany desk asked. Bookcases covered two of the walls on this very expensive looking office.

The younger man, also dressed in a suit looked at the front page of the L.A. Times proclaiming _The Future_. "It looks like the front page talking about that super-heroine, Mr. Holland. I haven't had the chance to read it myself yet."

"So you weren't aware that it talks about Hellmouths, vampires and gremlins? And that there may be a conspiracy to hide this from humanity at large?"

The younger man's mouthed gaped out. "Excuse me? And this wasn't laughed out of the editorial offices over there?"

"I want you to find out how this Barbara Carter pulled this off. Kill her if you need to. Then send a hit-squad to Sunnydale. Make sure they are polite to Mayor Wilkins."

-

"What is this?" Giles demanded as he slapped the newspaper onto the table in the library.

"Oh? Barbara finally got her story published?" Alythea said excitedly. It had been four days since they had talked to the reporter. "Wow, she did a lot of research on this!" She was scanning down the article.

Buffy just smiled nervously. The Watcher was already upset with Xander, Jesse, Willow and Cordelia being in the know. Throwing this out to the public on top of it... she had no idea how this would turn out.

"This is a disaster!" the Watcher exclaimed as he started to clean his glasses.

"Why?" Alythea asked curiously.

"Normal people are not capable of dealing with demons and vampires!" Giles said harshly. He jammed his glasses back on and glared at the super powered heroine from another Earth.

"Normal people are unable to learn to 'not invite' people into their home after dark?" She looked confused.

"She's got a point about that one!" Buffy said with a snickering smile. "And I can't exactly protect the whole world. I mean, it's important that I'm here on this Hellmouth thingy. What are the other five billion humans going to get?"

Giles flushed, then paled. "Do you really want to bring back the Inquisition? And all the evil acts that happened because of that?" he demanded.

Alythea stood up, a serious look on her face. "Then they will need to be shown a better way. To have someone lead them. And show them that not all magic is evil, but that evil must be stood against. And to never back down."

The Watcher leaned back, thinking things through. "You do not know what you are doing."

"Isn't life is a learning experience?" Buffy asked. "I think everyone should know. So they can defend themselves. Come on Ali, let's get some training done."

Giles gaped. He knew that Buffy was supposed to be a difficult slayer to deal with as she wasn't raised by the Watchers Council, but she was becoming an even worse. She was turning into a true maverick due to this super heroine's influence. He frowned as he stared at their backs, even after the door closed.

Finally, he stood up and walked to his office and picked up his phone and dialed a long phone number. "I need to speak to Travers."

-

"All right, let's mix things up here," Khel'Futurias called out. The band of would be warriors was at the quarry again, with the sun low and to the east. This idea was the Buffy's, and it was a bit devious. "Willow, Xander, Jesse? We'll have you three team up to take on me. Slayer and Cordelia, I want you to do an obstacle dash through the trees."

Shrugging, Buffy took off. She had taken to wearing a fairly heavy leather jacket, to keep down on the scratches and bruises. Alythea had grinned for some reason at her new look. With the domino mask and hair pulled tightly back she looked dangerous... if you discounted her size. Cordelia had more money than real sense, so had a new outfit ordered. The full-body suit of leather of dark black was _very _snug. She had glared through her Zorro-style mask quite a bit at Jesse and Xander when she had shown up with it today.

"I still think I could use Nighthawk," Xander complained as he held his axe defensively. Jesse fell back, while Willow held her stake uncertainly at his side.

"Why not create your own name? Or at least a name that isn't directly stolen from a comic book?" Khe'Futurias asked. "Everyone ready?"

She let Xander charge, swinging his axe which she deflected. Willow's jab with a stake was deftly avoided, as was the arrow that Jesse sent at her.

"But it's a cool name!" Xander retorted.

"And if this Nighthawk actually exists somewhere? He might get a bit upset at you using his name," she replied even as she slugged him in the stomach lightly.

"Point!" he gasped. He had to smile though, they were doing better even after just a few days of training. He took a step to the side to flank the tall albino when something tackled his red-headed partner from behind, sending them both tumbling. He gaped at that, then turned as he heard a grunt of pain from Jesse. He had just a moment to stare in shock at his empty hands as Khel'Futurias disarmed him and then slammed him back on the ground.

Even as he was groaning, he felt a foot on his neck. "Okay, the exercise is over," the white and yellow clad heroine called out.

Buffy released Willow, who was rubbing her shoulder.

Cordelia sneered as she toed Jesse over even as he tried to curl up into a fetal position. "Oh, get up. I didn't kick you that hard. That was for perving at me!" the half-vampire said.

"What's the big deal?" Willow demanded, showing a surprising temper. "I thought you two were running an obstacle course."

"Blame me! Ali mentioned that we should start training to think tactically. This was a lesson in always being aware and not taking anything for granted. Like that she really was all alone." The Slayer turned towards Cordelia. "What do you think you were doing? You weren't supposed to do more than scuff them or scare them!"

"I... I don't know. I just got upset at remembering the way he looked at me and I felt like paying him back." The leather-wearing girl sat in the shade. "This anger just welled up and I just wanted to hurt him." She had wanted to hurt him worse, but held back. But they probably didn't want to hear that.

"Well, I got that message!" Jesse squeaked out from where he lay on the ground. "Gotta get a cup. You too, Xan-man."

Willow smiled tentatively. "Well, you might be right. _I'm_ certainly going to be keeping an eye on our backs a bit more thoroughly.

Xander accepted Khel'Futurias's hand up. "Damn, I thought we were doing better," he groused. This was frustrating.

"You are! That's why we are turning up the training," the tallest girl said.

Suddenly, Khel'Futurias flickered for just a second. "That must have been Barbara Carter! She said she'd give me a five minutes warning if she could."

The Slayer looked at the ground, her lips pursed. "You need backup?"

"Are you sure? We don't know what the situation is."

"Yeah. Like I told Giles, people need to know. And Barbara is our best ticket to let the world know," she replied tersely.

"I just want to beat something up. Count me in!" snapped out Cordelia. She bounced to her feet.

"What? You don't even have a codename-" the blonde started to object.

"Call me Vamp," she said mirthlessly with a cold smile.

Jesse finally got to his feet. "I'm going to be Night Shot!"

"Hold it, Night Shot! You guys aren't quite ready for patrolling quite yet. This is likely to turn out worse than patrolling around town easily. Let's get you started on something a little easier to start with!" Khel'Futurias said while holding up her hand.

"But-" Willow started to complain, but stopped when the albino turned to her.

"You are almost ready to go on a patrol. But not a potentially dangerous ambush or kidnapping," she said. Khel'Futurias also had misgiving on taking Vamp along, but she would try her best to keep her safe. But she at least had super powers. She opened pocket computer and tapped some buttons. "Get ready."

All of a sudden, the three of the disappeared with a snap-crack.

"Dammit! We just want to help!" yelled Xander.

Willow and Jesse shared a worried look.

Slinging his axe over his shoulder, he started to tromp off only to stop suddenly. "Oh crap!"

Willow and the self-proclaimed Night Shot started scanning the area for enemies. "What?" the cried out.

"We are going to have to walk back to town!"

That got them to groan as they realized he was right.

-

"Hey! Barbara! You got your desk cleaned out?" Mike Miller asked.

"I haven't been fired yet!" she snapped back. She was wearing a very conservative and expensive business suit today.

"Whatever! Say that after your meeting with the Editor in Chief-ness. I hear the CEO is even here," he replied with a grin that would make sharks envious. The older man had been wanting her gone ever since she scooped him on that scandal with the senator and his mistress.

"I appreciate you looking out for me, Mike," she replied. She stood up and grabbed her purse. She slipped her hand in there to feel the cold metal tube as she walked. She'd started to have a healthy paranoia about this situation. Vampires, immortal mayors, super-heroines and a murder statistic that fit Chicago or Washington D.C. better would do that to anyone, she thought ruefully.

She almost didn't notice the woman walking past her, except to not that she was wearing an identical outfit to what she had. Long instincts from ferreting out stories in the wrong parts of town were suddenly clamoring. She opened the door to the conference room just a couple of minutes later, taking in Ed Martinez and Bart Truman.

"Close the door, Barbara!" Ed said. He was nominally her boss, but was actually her bosses' boss. "Let's not air your dirty laundry in public, shall we?" The conference room was dominated by the huge wooden table. Large, slightly tinted windows dominated the far wall from the door, showing the sun low in the west. The walls were paneled in expensive hard woods, while the carpet below her feet was plush and springy. The lights were dim, leaving the largest source of light the sun through the windows.

"Dirty laundry, Ed? I don't know what you are talking about." She caught a sniff of something. Almost a chemical burning, lightly floating around the room. A surge of adrenaline shot into her blood even as she clutched her purse closer to her. She moved to one end of the table.

"You've made the L.A. Times the laughing stock of the national newspapers! I should terminate you and sue for slander!" Bart Truman exclaimed.

"You can only sue for slander if I'm bad mouthing you and lying about it, Mr. Truman. And Ed, all I did was _report_ the news. Everything I reported was either Khel'Futurias in that interview or facts publicly available in state records," she said, looking at her boss intently. Depending on how he answered would tell her if he was in on the cover-up.

"It's too bad, Barbara. I thought you were a player, willing to be part of the team. But you had to go all gung-ho and behind my back. Bill really shouldn't have pulled a last moment change on the front page like that," Ed said harshly.

"So you are in it too? That doesn't surprise me. They'd have to have a clamp on the media, wouldn't they?" she asked rhetorically.

She saw a new figure by the door, a pale man in a dark suit. Shit, where had he come from?

"Your little heroine isn't going to be able to save you today, Miss Reporter. And that wire you are wearing has been recording a _very _interesting conversation which will be nail in your career... just before you decide to go murder Adam Sorrows because he's been publicly lambasting your putrid little story," the newcomer said with a brilliant smile. "My employers are certainly doing enough to make sure that's what everyone is going to see."

"You can't just make me disappear!" she retorted hollowly.

"We already did. You just walked out the front door in a tirade threatening to kill that _'bastard Sorrows'_ for daring to stand up against you. You are headed right over to the Merlin Building with a gun, didn't you know?" He smiled again. "Why don't you just hand over your tape recorder and that silly can of mace. Or I can make it really bad for you."

"This tape recorder?" she said off-handily. She held up the tape recorder, showing it's recording light. "I was really hoping you'd name your employer, but you seem to be too cagey for that."

"A reporter to the end!" Bart Truman chortled out. "That's going to be the death of you, you know?"

"And your other hand now, Miss Carter," the threatening man by the door said intently.

From the shadows in the corner a nightmarish figure stepped forward. He was easily seven foot tall and his skin was bright red. He was wearing a huge trench coat and fedora. He looked like the archetypal demon, even to a little goatee and goat hooves.

"Oh, I left my mace in my other purse." She held up an eight inch tube with glowing LEDs on it. "This is a souped up super-team teleport retrieval beacon."

With a snap, three heroines appeared around her.

"You know what the most important skill a heroine can cultivate?" Khel'Futurias asked conversationally for the whole room.

"I'm sure you are about to tell us," the leather-clad heroine on her left said with a smirk.

"Ha! Bet I can guess! It's all about timing!" the blonde replied.

"Exactly!"

"Kill them all!" Bart Truman yelled out even as he ducked back behind the huge table.

The man at the door vamped out even as the demon roared out and charged the four women.

"Don't hold back anything!" Khel'Futurias yelled out, even as she blasted out with with a white beam of energy, staggering the huge demon.

Flame dripped from his mouth, even as his eyes flared red. "I'll feast upon your soul!" he announced grandly as he ripped off his trench coat.

The slayer had pulled stake from under her leather jacket. "You're mine, vampire!" she called out, even as she smashed a punch out at his face. The vampire blocked it hard, then snapping out several punches that she failed to block well, sending her staggering back. He was just moving to finish the Slayer when a chair smashed into him with superhuman force, bouncing him off the door.

"Sorry, no killing the Slayer today!" Vamp called out derisively. She then snapped out a kick at his head.

Which the vampire caught with one hand. "Little girls shouldn't pretend to fight." He twirled her face first by her ankle into the heavy wood door with bone-jarring force. "Little girl."

The Slayer then kicked him hard in his stomach. "Sheesh, Vamp. Try to stay alive!" she quipped.

With a groan, Vamp groused back at her with, "I'm trying!" She staggered back to her feet.

That was when Khel'Futurias blasted the demon right through the windows, letting in unfiltered sunlight into the room, causing the vampire to start smoking! Reacting instantly, he smashed through the door and deeper into the building to flee the accursed sunlight.

"Slayer! Don't let him get away. Meet out front. Vamp, protect Barbara! Yell for help if you need it," Khel'Futurias ordered, even as she floated off the ground as light surrounded her. She rocketed outside and made a ninety degree turn downward.

"Okay-dokey!" the blonde said with a casual shrug. She threw a grin at the other heroine and then dashed off down the hall after the vampire.

Vamp wiped blood off her face and wiggled her injured nose. "Great." She walked over to Barbara who was looking out the broken window. Their fight was continuing in the middle of the street, cars stopped all around them with horns blaring.

Ed Martinez pulled a gun from his briefcase. This situation had gotten totally out of control. So he had better take charge. He flipped the safety with a soft click.

The dark haired girl watching the fight with interest heard the click and registered it as a sound a gun makes from far too many cop shows. She looked in the direction even as she grabbed Barbara. Ed was just raising the gun when Vamp dived out the window with a shriek from her impromptu passenger. The crack of gunshots was deafening loud, but none of the shots came close.

The half-vampiress was too busy trying to figure out how to survive a fall from sixty feet up. "Hang on!" she yelled out inanely, almost panicked herself from Barbara's shrieking. She grabbed the street light which bent alarmingly, but slowed them dramatically. She let go and then thumped onto the roof of a black sedan, denting it with a loud thump. "Owie!"

Barbara's yell cut off suddenly. Looking quite surprised, she finally exclaimed, "We're alive."

"I think I sprained my ankle," Vamp said, walking gingerly on it. She smiled as she realized they were actually in the shadow of the building across the street.

"Thanks." Barbara was watching the fight going on between the white and yellow clad heroine and the red-skinned demon. "So, you're another heroine?"

"Gee, what was the clue? The mask? Super powers? Saving your life?" Vamp snarked back with a roll of her eyes.

"Up for an interview? Slayer didn't want one until she went public... which could well be today! Another couple of heroines could _really_ boost my reputation, because it looks like I'm going to need a new job soon," the reporter said. She held up her tape recorder hopefully.

"After the fight. I might hate the training Ali has us doing, but I can see the importance." The leather-clad heroine started paying attention to the surroundings more seriously.

People were getting out of their cars and fleeing towards alleys and away down the street. There was a lot of pointing and some screaming. Vamp noted that several people were looking for cameras and wondering aloud what movie this was going to be in, something she just shook her head at.

"Why don't you just die?" the huge demon exclaimed in frustration. They were both looking very beat and battered by this point.

"Too stubborn," she replied in a flat tone. She flew sideways as he suddenly breathed fire where she had been just been, melting an abandoned family car. She lashed out with eye-beams, striking his torso again.

Above them, a window shattered as two figures came flying out to land, painfully, on a minivan's roof which crumpled spectacularly. The Slayer had landed on top though. She raised herself to her knees unsteadily, but lashed out with two punches to the vampire's face, knocking him out. She pulled out another stake from her leather jacket and finished him off with a wood stake; poof.

Vamp clapped her hand. "Bravo. Bravo. Now you can help our fearless leader!" At the Slayer's indignant look, she replied while smirking with, "I'm on bodyguard duty, remember?"

Barbara rolled her eyes. These were the heroes of the day and age?

The blonde glared right back, reached under the back of her jacket and pulled out an overgrown knife. She waited until Khel'Futurias had him focussed away from her and then charged forward in a blur. She landed on his back and slammed knife into his neck with all her strength. The demon gurgled even as he grabbed the young woman on his back and threw her with great force at the nearest wall.

She managed to roll enough to slam into the brick wall with her back, even though it left her seeing stars.

The demon growled, but his gaze was dragged back to the floating figure. Shimmering sparks were streaming towards here, converging with a flash and leaving her mostly healed. "Damn," the demon muttered, just before her energized fists hit his face.

Vamp and Barbara were like most people on the street, engrossed in the slugging match (well, beat down now) between the flying heroine and the huge demon in the center of the road. So she almost didn't hear the click (again!) of a gun's safety. She started moving instantly, still on the adrenaline high from her near death earlier.

In a blur, she tackled the surprised reporter even as the retort of a handgun rang out just as they went down behind one of the haphazardly parked cars on the street.

"He's got a gun!" someone yelled out, sending people backing away.

Khel'Futurias's head whipped around, giving her opponent time to head-butt her hard and knocking her out of the sky. She landed on her backside, stunned slightly, but rolled away to avoid a stomp that sent tremors through the ground.

Ed frowned in frustration. She was as jumpy as a full vampire. He was moving to get a clear shot when something smacked into his forehead, heralding the darkness of unconsciousness. The Slayer ran over and picked up her stake that she had just beaned him with the blunt end; kicking his gun away so he wouldn't wake up and shoot her too.

"Vamp?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm... shot?" she replied in a daze. She patted her shoulder blade, pulling her hand back when she felt blood. She felt a strange pain, similar to a headache and tooth-ache all at the same time.

Barbara blanched, scooting back as she saw Vamp 'vampire-out' under her mask.

At the sound of _very loud _metal pounding sound, the blonde heroine looked over just in time to see Khel'Futurias finish using a subcompact as a bludgeon to beat her foe unconscious. She ran over quickly. "What happened?"

"Those guys really don't like us," the blonde said grimly.

"She was shot as she was throwing me behind the car," Barbara explained. Her expensive suit was quite thrashed by now. "I think they were trying to kill me to keep me quiet."

"She's gone all fangy," the Slayer said worriedly as she knealed down next to the darker haired girl. This did not look good at all.

"Sorry, my powers don't come with a user's guide!" Vamp snarled back, her voice deeply laid in pain.

"Instinct?" the albino hero asked. Her outfit was quite damaged, with only a few wisps of her cape left.

Slayer looked askance at her, then actually _thought_ about it. "I'm not donating any blood!"

"I will then. I should have been able to protect your better, Vamp. I apologize." Khel'Futurias held out her arm, which Vamp immediately latched onto. They watched for just a moment

"Oh my god!" Barbara suddenly exclaimed. "They are sending an impersonator to kill one of my 'detractors!'" She had the urge to start biting her fingernails, a habit she thought she had broken years ago.

The Slayer closed her eyes in frustration. "You didn't happen to get a name or location did you?"

With an indignant glare, the reporter replied, "Of course I did. He's Adam Sorrows and he's in the Merlin Building. It's just across the road from the Federal Court building-"

"Oh, that's just a few blocks away!" the shortest heroine exclaimed, bouncing to her feet. "I'm going to stop him!" she said, immediately taking off at full speed.

"Damn she's fast!" Barbara blurted out in surprise. "And knows L.A. too."

"Drat. She really should not have gone off on her own. Have you had enough yet?" Khel'Futurias asked the wounded girl.

She just growled, but let up a bit. Her eyes opened wide suddenly as she let go. "Ack! What the hell is wrong with your blood! It burns!" She started to cough.

-

Barbara Carter, or at least a reasonable facsimile, had entered the Merlin building in a towering rage, swearing at everyone in the lobby. That should make sure she was thoroughly remembered. She exited the elevator on the fourth floor and stormed towards the unassuming office of Adam Sorrows, mythical debunker and sometime 'magician'. She curled her lips in a sardonic smile. He was no Houdini though.

She kicked open the door with just a touch more than normal strength. "Come on out, you bastard!" she yelled out, trying to put on a show of being convincingly drunk. She held a small handgun and shot the monitor at the empty secretary's desk.

She knew, of course, that he was currently in, having an affair with a girl that he worked with. She kicked the door open just as Adam was opening it, knocking him backwards with a grunt. The young woman behind his desk shrieked, holding her shirt to her bra-clad chest.

"Hello, Mr. Sorrows. I'm sorry to say that this is a very bad day to be you. Your putrid excuse for debunking isn't going to save your life!" the reporter declared. "I worked hard on that story! How dare you accuse me of falsifying it?" she snarled. Her gun fired, hitting his leg.

"This isn't going to stop the truth!" he yelled out, even as he grabbed his leg. "Ah, shit." His thinning hair was totally disheveled, but his strong fingers clamped down on the wound hard.

"Don't you know it's not polite?" the shape-shifter said with a very snide tone. She heard a door slam open behind her. Time for someone new on the stage. Another witness to the reporter Barbara Carter's fall from grace and into insanity.

"Wow, you actually look just like her!" the voice exclaimed. "Except for the psychotic part. Barbara's way too nice for that." The Slayer just smirked as 'Barbara' started and turned, even while keeping her gun pointed at Adam.

"What are you talking about? And what's with the mask?" the faux-reporter asked.

"Oh, you know. Shape-shifters pretending to be reporters, demons and vampires trying to kill the real you." The Slayer grinned savagely. "You can call me Slayer. As in the Vampire Slayer."

"Ah, fuck," she responded. She started to whip the gun around to shoot the girl when a stake slammed into her shoulder. Before she could morph around the damage, the gun was ripped from her hand.

"Uh uh uh! Guns are not nice!" the blonde said while waving her forefinger at her as if she were a naughty child.

The shape-shifter backed up, looking for an exit, even as Adam piped up. "This is all some elaborate charade, to convince of your puerile story? I've seen better parlor tricks at grade school fairs!"

"Keep an open mind, Mister Skeptical!" the Slayer called out, even as she grabbed the shape-shifter around her neck and held her off the ground. She saw the shifter's muscles tense in her shoulders. Reacting instantly, she smacked her forehead against her target's nose, smashing it brutally.

The claws barely broke her skin... through her leather jacket. The Slayer looked down and saw the claws and punched her even harder with bone breaking force, knocking out the shape-shifter.

"That was... a bit closer than I wanted," she muttered to herself. She undid her jacket, only to find mere pinprick wounds. "That was also way luckier than I deserve!"

The partially clad woman shrieked as the assassin resumed his normal appearance.

Adam Sorrows blinked even as the super-powered girl just exclaimed, "Eww! That dress is so not your thing!"

-

Khel'Futurias was concentrating on her ear-bud. She looked over at Vamp as she spoke. "Slayer caught the doppelganger. She's waiting for the police to arrive and arrest him."

"Is that CNN?" Vamp asked, pointing down the road where van was unloading people with cameras.

"Ready for prime time?" Barbara asked, hurriedly brushing her fingers through her hair.

"I'm blood splattered! And I'm all fangy!" the girl responded, almost in a panic.

"Actually, until you started worrying about the cameras, you were almost back to normal." The reporter pursed her lips. "Exactly how long have you had your powers, anyways?"

Vamp was too busy looking in the reflection from a car window. As soon as her face reverted back to its human look, she pulled her mask tight. Barbara repeated her question once the girl wasn't distracted.

"Oh, last Friday. After a vampire killed me. But I got better. I have a pulse and everything!" she responded cheerfully.

"You were _killed?_"

Across the street in an alley, a boring looking man stood in the shadows frowning. This was going to take quite a bit of his power. Woflram and Hart was going to really owe him for changing so many people's memories.

He was just finishing pulling out his talismans and regents when he heard a gun click right behind him.

"Don't move. Don't even _breathe_, you traitor." A crackle and a click could be heard in the shadows. "Yeah, it is definitely HSTs. I've just captured some bastard from casting a spell. Probably going to make the HST disappear."

"Not at all. I was going to-"

A silenced shot struck his shoulder. "I told you to shut up the fuck up. I should just whack you. Your a traitor to your whole species, working with those things."

The warlock was starting to get worried. This was not a normal player.

He would never learn it was all because they were just stopping here on their way to Sunnydale.


End file.
